Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was dark when Richie came to his senses. Too dark for his liking if anything.

The ceiling above Richie glowed faintly in the twilight that bled through the blinds.

His eyes didn’t blink.

He didn’t dare.

Every time he closed them, he saw it again— The Waylon Place, and Max Jagerman’s twisted smile, permanently etched into his memory.

“Jesus…”

Richie whispered, wiping cold sweat from his brow. His shirt sticking to his back uncomfortably.

He hadn’t screamed when he woke up, but he’d come close, a sound bubbling in his throat but never breaking free.

He rolled onto his side and pulled the blanket up to his chin like it might shield him from the past. It wasn’t guilt. Not exactly.

He hadn’t wanted Max to die.

Not really, anyway.

But sometimes Richie wondered if the universe had done him a favor. Max Jagerman had always been… too much. Too big, too loud, too hungry for attention, for power, for fear. And when Waylon Place swallowed him whole, Richie didn’t cry. He didn’t scream or drop to his knees. He just stared and tried to control his breathing, more concerned about the consequences than Max’s well-being.

And when he saw max’s Body-

Cold, bloody…lifeless.

All he could think was-

‘Finally…it’s over’

Except it wasn’t.

I mean, it never really is, with people like max. Is it?

Now, lying there in the dark, Richie felt the weight of something pressing down on the room. A tension in the air, like static before a storm.

His chest ached with the kind of dread that didn’t come from memory, but from instinct. The animal part of him knew he wasn’t alone, even if the room looked empty.

His eyes drifted to the corner near the closet. The shadows there felt too thick, too patient.

Richie squeezed his eyes shut.

‘Get a grip Richie’

His mind repeated, his hand twitching anxiously.

But then—tap.

A soft, deliberate sound.

His eyes flew open. He sat up, heart drumming.

Then…another quick succession of taps, close.

coordinated.

Now it was behind him. On the wall. On the headboard? No—closer.

He turned slowly.

No one.

Of course there was no one. It’s late. He’s hearing things.

Richie huffed and lied back down, his back hitting the cool bedding.

That was until his gaze hit his bedroom door.

He’d locked it.

He was sure of it.

But now it lay- cracked open 2 inches.

Richie’s breath hitched.

Then he smelled it.

Blood.

Sharp. Metallic. Thick, like rusting iron soaked in heat.

It hit the back of his throat and made his stomach churn. Not a lot—just enough to mean something was wrong. Not imagined. Not a dream. Something was here.

Richie froze, and, For a moment, all he could hear was his own pulse thudding in his ears.

He turned toward the hallway.

The door stood open wider now—four inches, maybe five. He didn’t remember it moving.

He didn’t remember blinking.

And then came the sound.

Drip.

A wet, deliberate pause.

Drip.

It subtly mirrored the taps he’d heard moments before.

It was coming from the kitchen.

No footsteps.

No creaking floorboards.

Just that slow, steady drip—like something trying to get his attention, trying to lure him from the safety of his bedroom.

Every instinct screamed at him to stay in bed, stay still, stay small. But that smell—blood—wasn't going away

He exhaled slowly, shaky. He didn’t want to wake Paul. His uncle worked the early shift, and Richie already felt guilty enough for crashing here in the first place.

Paul had been nothing but kind, the only one who didn’t flinch when Richie told the truth about who he was. About everything.

But even kindness couldn’t shield a house from whatever this was.

Carefully, Richie peeled back the blanket. The room was cold against his skin the moment he moved.

Floorboards groaned as he stepped down, each one like a warning in the dark.

He grabbed the flashlight from his nightstand but didn’t turn it on. He didn’t want to see more than he had to. Not yet.

The hallway seemed to stretch in front of him, warped in shadow. The door to Paul’s room was shut. No light beneath it. No sound.

Drip

It echoed now—closer, like the walls were carrying it.

Richie moved toward the kitchen, each step deliberate, barefoot against the cool wood.

He hugged his arms close, stuffing his hands underneath his shoulders, while trying not to imagine the shape he thought he saw in the mirror as he passed it.

When he reached the kitchen doorway, he stopped.

Moonlight leaked through the window above the sink, casting the room in silver-blue. It looked empty.

Normal.

The kind of normal that felt wrong, like a stage set waiting for actors who’d already bled through the floorboards.

Everything was in its place—the kettle by the stove, the fruit bowl on the counter, the crooked magnet on the fridge that said PAUL’S HOUSE, PAUL’S RULES.

But the air was too still. The silence too thick. Richie didn’t breathe as he stepped over the threshold, eyes locked on the floor.

That’s where he saw it.

The blood.

Not splattered—placed. A trail of thin, uneven smears that led from the fridge to the table, like someone had dipped their fingers in it and dragged them deliberately across the tile.

No pooling, no mess.

Just a message.

His bare feet stopped inches from the nearest smear.

He crouched instinctively, careful not to touch it.

It was fresh.

Still glistening under the moonlight that spilled through the window above the sink.

Richie’s stomach flipped. He stood again, slowly, legs stiff from tension.

His breath fogged faintly in the air—too cold for late spring.

His eyes drifted up from the blood trail, following it across the floor like a map drawn by someone unwell.

At the end of it, there was… nothing.

No body. No source. Just that same sickly smell clinging to everything, like it had soaked into the walls.

Richie backed away from the table. His hand hovered near a drawer- knowing paul kept his sharpest knives tucked away- out of sight.

But he didn’t grab anything. Not yet. The quiet felt false. Like the house had been paused, waiting for a cue.

Then came the sound again.

Drip.

But not from the floor.

Above.

Richie looked up.

A single crimson droplet hung from the ceiling, trembling, then fell—splatting onto the tablecloth in front of him. He stepped back with a hiss, stomach twisting.

And that’s when he saw it: not on the table, not on the floor, but in the reflection of the microwave door.

A shape.

Tall.

Wrong around the edges.

Like something trying to wear the idea of a man.

Max.

Richie whipped around- only to find nothing there.

Just met with the dark kitchen and the repetitive buzz of the refrigerator.

He staggered back into the hallway, heart hammering.

A mirror in the hallway—an old thrift store thing Paul had hung crookedly—caught him as he turned. His own reflection looked pale, wild-eyed. Behind it, over his shoulder, another face began to form.

Smiling.

Richie spun, but again, there was no one.

But this time, something stayed behind.

A handprint on the wall. Dark red. Wet, fresh.

Max was here.

Not to kill him.

Not yet.

Just to remind him what guilt sounds like when it walks.

Richie stumbled backward, chest heaving, eyes darting between the hallway, the kitchen and the mirror.

The handprint was still there—dripping, watching. He didn’t want to wait to see if anything else would appear.

So, he turned on his heel and ran.

His footsteps were loud now, no longer careful.

The house felt like it was shrinking around him, every shadow reaching towards him.

He burst into his room and slammed the door shut, twisting the lock with shaking fingers. It clicked, but it didn’t feel like safety.

He didn’t turn on the light. Didn’t want to see anything else.

Instead, he dove into bed, pulling the covers over his head like a kid afraid of monsters—because right now, he was. And Max was no longer a bad memory or a closed chapter. He was here.

Richie squeezed his eyes shut and forced his breathing to slow. In. Out. In. Out. He told himself it wasn’t real. That it was stress. Lack of sleep. Old trauma fizzing back up. Max Jagerman was dead. Dead people didn’t haunt kitchens. Dead people didn’t smile from mirrors.

He whispered it like a mantra into the darkness beneath the covers.

“Not real. Not real. Not real.”

But the cold didn’t go away.

And somewhere, beyond the blankets, something scraped faintly across the floor.
Like fingernails. Or cleats.

He didn’t move.

Didn’t breathe.

But, eventually, exhaustion dragged him under, not because he felt safe, but because fear had emptied him out.

————————————————————————

Morning came too fast.

The light was thin and grey through the blinds, but it was enough to make the room feel less like a tomb.

Richie sat up slowly, rubbing at his eyes. He was still in yesterday’s shirt. His whole body felt wrung out, like he’d fought something in his sleep.

He half expected the handprint to still be on the hallway wall.

It wasn’t.

The kitchen was spotless. No blood. No trail. No lingering smell.

The microwave door was clean. No reflection but his own.

Paul was already gone—must’ve left early for work. A note on the fridge read:

Left you some waffles. Kick ass today. —P

Richie stared at it for a long moment and his chest tightened with something hard to name.

He ate the waffles standing up, chewing mechanically, they tasted like cardboard in his mouth. His stomach twisted with leftover fear, but he forced the food down anyway. He didn’t want Paul to worry. Didn’t want anyone to worry.

he didn’t trust the quiet.

Richie padded back to his room, the floor no longer creaking like it had the night before. The morning light made everything seem softer, but not safer.

He closed the door behind him and stripped off his wrinkled shirt, fingers fumbling at the hem. The mirror across the room was crooked, angled slightly away, just how he liked it.

Still, he kept his eyes off it as he stood there, bare-chested, the chill of the air biting into his skin.

He reached up and ran his fingers along the scar that curved beneath his chest—faint now, but familiar. Clean. Surgical. A reminder.

Some days he touched it and felt strong.

Today, he felt small.

The fear, the memory, the smell of blood in the dark—it clung to him like a second skin. His heart thudded against the cage of his ribs, and he swallowed hard.

His fingers curled, instinctively covering the scar, like he could tuck it back inside himself.

He turned away from the mirror and grabbed a shirt—then another. He layered them without thinking. Black t-shirt, gray hoodie, overshirt. It was too warm for that much fabric, even in the morning, but he didn’t care. Better to be wrapped tight. Better to disappear.

He looked at himself in the mirror only once. Quick. Just a glance.

Still there.
Still him.
Still scared

He slung his backpack over his shoulder and stepped out into the hallway, jaw tight.

At the front door, he hesitated.

The glass was fogged from the inside, warmed by the early sun.

There, in the condensation, traced in long, deliberate streaks:

“Good luck, shitlips.”

————————————————————————————

The school day unfolded like a film reel with frames missing.

Richie moved through it in a fog. His body ached from lack of sleep, and his mind kept flicking back to the blood, the whisper, the glass. But nothing followed him through the school doors.
No shadows.
No strange reflections.
No Max.

The most haunting thing in first period was Mr. Weller’s coffee breath.

By third period, he was almost starting to believe he’d made it up. A stress response. A trauma echo. Just some leftover fear clawing up from his subconscious.

At lunch, he found his usual spot in the corner of the cafeteria, dropping his tray beside Ruth, who was already halfway through a bag of pretzels and deeply involved in whatever board game wiki she was scrolling on her phone.

She looked up the second he sat down.

“Okay, no offense, but you look like you got hit by a ghost bus.”

“Good to see you too,” Richie muttered, slumping into the seat.

“No, I mean—are you okay?” she asked, softer this time. Still Ruth, still blunt, but the concern was real.

“You look like you didn’t sleep. Or, like, you did sleep but astrally projected into Hell.”

Richie gave a weak, hoarse laugh. “Something like that.”

Pete slid into the seat across from them, his tray overloaded with tater tots and determination. “Did I hear something about Hell?”

“Richie had a rough night,” Ruth said, handing him a juice box like it was an emergency ration.

Richie took it without question.

Steph arrived a moment later, settling in beside Pete with a quick smile. She was still figuring out the group’s rhythm, but she already got the sense that something was off. She gave Richie a once-over and raised an eyebrow.

“You alright? You look like shit” she pondered.

Richie opened his mouth, then closed it again.

“I just... didn’t sleep. That’s all.”

“Nightmares?” Pete asked.

“Not exactly,” Richie mumbled.

Ruth narrowed her eyes. “Not exactly? Did you summon a demon in your basement? Steal a haunted VHS? Watch that forbidden Muppet special again?”

“One time,” Richie muttered into his hands, gently laughing.

Ruth leaned closer. “Okay but seriously—do we need to stage an intervention? A cleansing ritual? Call a hot priest?”
Steph snorted. “Define ‘hot.’”

“Like, morally questionable but probably really good at exorcisms,” Ruth said.

“Ah,” Steph nodded. “So your type.”

Ruth grinned. “Obviously.”

Pete looked between them. “Guys. Focus. Richie’s clearly in his ‘I’m repressing something terrifying and traumatic’ era.”

Richie sighed. “I’m fine. Really.”

Ruth didn’t push—she just rested her elbow on the table and said, more gently, “You don’t have to be. Just say the word and I’ll start researching salt circle configurations.”

Pete nodded. “And I’ll bring the snacks. Demon-fighting requires carbs.”

And for the first time that day, Richie smiled. Small. Genuine. The weight on his chest didn’t go away, but it lifted just enough.

The rest of lunch passed in familiar banter—nerdy, weird, a little inappropriate, and warm in a way that made Richie almost forget.

———————————————————————————

The house was quiet when Richie got home.
Paul’s car wasn’t in the driveway, which meant he was working late again.

Richie didn’t mind. Normally he liked the quiet.

Usually it meant he could decompress with a bad horror movie, scroll through obscure internet forums, or nap for three hours and call it “self-care.”

Today, the silence felt heavy.

He kicked off his shoes, dropped his backpack by the door, and made a beeline for his room, only pausing long enough to grab a juice from the fridge. The same hallway from last night stretched ahead of him. No handprints. No blood. No flickering lights.

No Max.

Still, he didn’t take his eyes off the mirror as he passed it.

Just in case.

He closed his bedroom door behind him, collapsed onto his bed without bothering to undress, and buried himself in blankets like he had the night before.

His body ached like it hadn’t truly relaxed in days, and now that he was safe—safe—the weight of the last twenty-four hours hit him like a brick wall.

He closed his eyes.

The bed was warm. Familiar.

For the first time since yesterday, he let himself believe that maybe—maybe—it was over.

Then—

Shift.

The mattress dipped beside him.
It was subtle at first, like a cat had jumped onto the bed. But then it dipped again—deeper.

He froze.

His eyes snapped open.

Max Jagerman was lying right there.
Stretched out beside him, on his bed, with one arm propped behind his head like he was just chilling. His grin was sharp and a little too wide.

“Miss me?”

Richie screamed.

He tumbled out of bed in a tangle of limbs and blankets, hit the floor hard enough to rattle the nightstand, and saw the room spin once before everything went dark.

————————————————————————

When Richie came to, it was dusk. Light poured into the room in dull orange streaks.

His head throbbed.

And Max was still there.

Now seated in his desk chair like he owned the place, spinning lazily from side to side. His eyes snapped to Richie the moment he stirred.

“Oh good,” Max drawled. “You’re not dead…lucky”

Richie groaned and sat up slowly. “What the h-hell are you doing here?”

Max raised his arms dramatically. “Ta-da! Welcome to your very own haunted life, starring me!”

Richie stared at him. “This i-isn’t real.”

“Denial,” Max said. “Stage one of ghost-related trauma. We’ll get through it together.” He mocked, placing his hand on his chest sarcastically.

Richie didn’t answer right away.

He was too busy staring.

Not just at the fact that Max Jagerman was in his room—grinning like a twisted yearbook photo come to life—but at the way he looked.
He was… almost normal.

Almost.

The same Max Jagerman from every cursed memory Richie had tried to suppress—broad shoulders stuffed into that blue and white letterman jacket, blue jeans stained with dried blood. a wild, furious energy in his stance like he’d just stepped off the battlefield of a high school apocalypse.

But it wasn’t just the blood or the way his clothes hung off him like they’d been clawed through. It was something in the way he stood—too still. Too certain. Like he wasn’t afraid of being seen, because he was meant to be seen. Meant to dominate a room.

His hair was damp, stringy in places like he’d just crawled out of something wrong, but it didn’t dim the manic fire in his eyes.

Richie couldn’t stop staring.

There was no guts. No gaping holes. No missing pieces.

Just Max.

Max in the flesh—or something wearing it.

“You’re staring,” Max said, amused.

“You’re dead,” Richie whispered.

“Dead,” Max agreed, “but still stealing hearts.”

“You’re dead,” Richie said again, like maybe repetition would make it less real.

“Yeah,” Max said, “and yet I’m still hotter than most guys above ground. Pretty unfair, right?”

Richie swallowed, eyes darting away—because damn it, he wasn’t wrong.

He hated that he wasn’t wrong.

Max was covered in blood, his jeans were a disaster, his eyes looked like they’d seen Hell and wanted to bring it back as a souvenir—but somehow, none of it dulled the fact that he was objectively, infuriatingly attractive. It wasn’t just the looks—it was the presence, like he knew every room belonged to him the second he walked in.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” Richie muttered, turning away. “This isn’t… I don’t understand why it’s me.”

Max leaned back against the wall, arms crossed, like he was settling in for story time.

“Funny thing,” he said, casually, “I didn’t pick this either. One minute I was getting my face punched in and doing the whole dramatic dying thing, and the next—boom. I wake up tethered to your sad little life.”

Richie glared at him.

“Turns out,” Max continued, stepping closer, “when you die violently, sometimes your soul gets… sticky. Especially if someone happens to be looking at you like you’re the one who got hurt.”

Richie flinched.

“I didn’t want you to die.”

“Yeah. I know.” Max’s voice was suddenly quieter. Almost flat. “That’s the problem.”

A beat passed. Then he grinned again, sharp and unbothered.

“Congrats. We’re like some kind of haunted odd couple. You get the pleasure of slowly spiraling into madness, and I get a front-row seat to all your weird little habits.”

He smirked. “Including your late-night, uh, solo adventures. Real vigorous, Richie. Didn’t know you were packing.”

Richie froze.

His stomach twisted, not with embarrassment—but with cold, certain clarity.

Max was bluffing.

The sentence hit him like a slap, but not for the reason Max clearly intended. He hadn’t seen anything. If he had, he wouldn’t have said that.

Max didn’t know.

Richie kept his expression neutral—blank, even—as his brain scrambled to keep his heartbeat from showing on his face.

“You’re disgusting,” he muttered, stepping away.

Max’s grin widened. “And yet so charming.”

He flopped down across Richie’s bed like he owned the place, lacing his fingers behind his head. “I’m just saying, if you’re gonna have a ghost roommate, maybe ease up on the thirst. I’m trying to haunt with dignity.”

“You’re not funny,” Richie said sharply, keeping his voice as flat as he could manage.

“Tell that to your sock drawer.”

Richie grabbed the nearest pillow and hurled it straight at Max’s face.

But, it didn’t sail through air.

Max caught it—clean, one-handed—without even looking.

Richie froze.
Max glanced over, smile curling like smoke.

“Yeah. Surprise. I’ve got range.”

Richie sat frozen on his bed, heart pounding. Max had just told him—actually shown him—that he could touch things. Not just flicker like some shadow, but really move stuff. It wasn’t a trick or a glitch in his head anymore. This was real.

A chill ran down Richie’s spine. The thought that Max could reach out and grab something—or worse, him—was terrifying.

The silence in the house had settled heavy over Richie’s shoulders, like a wet blanket he couldn’t shrug off.

Max had vanished again—no quip, no smirk, not even a flicker of motion out of the corner of his eye. That almost made it worse. Like he’d sunken under Richie’s skin now, waiting.

Richie blinked down at his phone, screen lighting up with a new message.

Ruth: Hey. Are you okay?
 You seemed really off today. Like… spooky off. You left your tray in the cafeteria.

Pete: Yeah, dude. You didn’t even do your mr. Hosker voice when Coach punched the vending machine. We were worried

Richie stared at their texts for a long moment, chest tight. His fingers hovered above the screen, unsure of what to say—how to word ‘I think I’m going crazy and also maybe being haunted by a dead jock who won’t leave me alone and might be kind of hot if he’d stop trying to drive me insane.’

He settled on:

Richie: Sorry. Rough day.
You guys wanna come over or something?

Three dots danced.

Pete: Yeah. We can bring snacks. You home alone?

Richie flinched. The shadows in the hallway seemed to deepen as if they’d overheard.

He quickly opened a chat with Paul.

Richie: Hey, is it cool if Pete and Ruth come over for a bit?

Paul didn’t answer right away. And Richie imagined Paul at beanies, phone on silent as he hopelessly flirted with Emma.

Paul: That’s fine, kiddo. Just keep it down. I’ll be back late.

Richie: Thanks.

He switched back to the group chat.

Richie: Yeah, Paul won’t be back till later. Come over whenever.

He tossed the phone aside with more force than he meant to, running both hands down his face. The silence pressed in again, almost smug now.

Then—

A low whistle, behind him.

He froze.

“That was sweet,” Max’s voice drawled, soft and syrupy and close. “Didn’t peg you as the clingy type, Lipschitz.”

Richie didn’t turn around. His heart pounded in
his ears.

“Fuck off.”

He heard the smile in Max’s voice. “But you invited them. That’s a step up, huh? You’re learning how to play the game.”

A sudden cold breath ghosted across the back of Richie’s neck. He flinched, spinning—but there was no one there. Just the mirror that now lay straight, angled towards his bed.

And his reflection.

Standing right behind Richie’s.

Grinning.

The knock came just as the sun dipped below the horizon, turning Richie’s room from gray to a bruised purple.

He barely heard it at first—his thoughts tangled and sharp like broken glass. But then it came again, sharper, insistent.

“Richie? It’s us. You okay?”

Pete’s voice, steady and grounding, cracked through the silence like a lifeline.

Richie forced himself off the bed, every step weighted, opening the door before they could open the door a third time.

Ruth and Pete stood there, a little windblown from the walk, Pete clutching a bag of chips, Ruth with a thermos of something hot.

“Hey,” Ruth said softly, her eyes scanning his face. “You look like hell.”

“Yeah well…I just came back from it” richie responded, eliciting a giddy laugh for Ruth, recognising the reference.

Pete gave a half-smile, dropping the chips on the cluttered desk as he walked in.

“We brought reinforcements. Figured you might need some company.”

Richie swallowed, the tight knot in his throat loosening a fraction. “Thanks.”

They stepped inside, and the front door clicked shut behind them, muffling the outside world.

When they finally got upstairs and into Richie’s room, Ruth settled on the edge of the bed, pulling her knees close. “You’ve been weird all day! Like, not your usual weeb self.”

Pete nodded, sinking into his gaming chair, eyes never leaving Richie. “And you weren’t answering your phone.”

Richie rubbed the back of his neck, feeling Max’s presence flicker just beyond the walls. “It’s… complicated.”

Pete raised an eyebrow. “Complicated like ‘I’m possessed by a ghost,’ or complicated like ‘I forgot to do my homework?’”

Ruth shot Pete a look that said don’t be an idiot, but smiled. “Whatever it is, you don’t have to deal with it alone.”

Richie let out a short, humorless laugh. “Thanks. I’m glad you’re here.”

Max’s voice teased in the back of his mind, darker, more mocking than ever. ‘Look at you. Your little rescue party.’

Richie pushed the thought down, focusing on the real warmth in the room—for now.

“Want some of these chips?” Pete offered, holding out the bag.

“Yeah,” Richie said, and maybe, just maybe, for the first time all day, he felt a little less haunted.

Richie reached for the bag, fingers trembling just slightly as he pulled out a handful of chips. Pete watched him carefully, like he could see the invisible weight pulling at Richie’s skin, but decided to stay silent.

For the rest of the evening, they decided to do a horror movie marathon, and the irony was not lost on Richie.

The soft glow from the screen painted shadows in the room, making the familiar walls seem both comforting and strange.

Ruth had curled up on the floor, her back resting against the side of Richie’s bed, a junko body pillow hugged tight to her chest.

Pete was sprawled out nearby, legs crossed awkwardly, clutching one of Richie’s squishmallows like it was a lifeline.

For a while, the three of them sat in a warm, lazy silence, only the low murmur of the film and the occasional rustle of chips breaking the stillness. Richie tried to focus on the movie — anything but the uneasy feeling that crept under his skin, the sense of eyes watching him from nowhere.

Hours passed, and Ruth’s eyelids fluttered, her breathing slowing as sleep tugged at her.

Pete’s head lolled to the side, mouth slightly open, completely zonked out. Both had unconsciously settled into little nests of pillows, forming a strange circle around Richie’s bed.

Richie stared down at them, a small, tired smile twitching at the corner of his lips. For now, at least, it felt like normal — like the friends who always had his back were here, safe and solid.

He shifted under the covers, the chips forgotten on his lap as he tried to sink into the quiet comfort of their presence, even if the shadows just beyond the room whispered something else entirely.

Richie’s eyes softened as he watched Ruth’s chest rise and fall steadily, the soft, even rhythm a quiet anchor against the storm of thoughts swirling inside him. Pete’s uneven breathing, the way his arm flopped over the pillow, looked so peaceful—unaware of the shadows gnawing at Richie’s edges

He shifted a little, careful not to wake them, but the silence around him pressed heavier than ever. The room felt smaller, the darkness creeping closer with every heartbeat.

His fingers traced idle patterns on the blanket, but the unease didn’t fade. It lingered like a low hum just beneath the surface, a whisper he couldn’t shake

Somewhere deep down, he wanted to tell them. About the strange noises, the cold spots, the way it felt like someone was watching him—even now. But the words stuck in his throat, tangled in fear and disbelief.

So instead, Richie pulled the blanket tighter, trying to fold the restless weight of his mind away, and let the quiet fill the spaces they couldn’t yet understand.

Outside, the wind shifted, rattling the window just enough to make him flinch—but when he looked, there was nothing there.
Nothing but the dark and the unwavering sense of unease. An unease that follows him into the gentle embrace of sleep, his vision slowly blurring. And for a second? He swears he can see a face.

Chapter Text

Morning crept in soft and gray through the half-open blinds of Richie’s bedroom.

The light pooled on the cluttered floor, catching on schoolbooks, a crumpled hoodie, and a half-finished sketch in Richie’s notebook.

He blinked awake, bleary-eyed and disoriented, only to see a tuft of Pete’s hair sticking out from under the sleeping bag near his desk and Ruth curled up with a pillow at the foot of the bed like a guard dog that had dozed off.

It was quiet. Comfortably quiet.

Richie let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, the kind of breath that felt like it’d been stuck in his chest for days.

He sat up slowly, brushing his hair out of his face. Pete stirred with a groggy noise, adjusting his glasses as he blinked awake.

“Morning” Richie mumbled.

Pete nodded. “Is it?”

Ruth yawned as she rolled over, rubbing sleep from her eyes. “What time is it?”

Richie checked his phone. “Almost ten.”

Pete sat up with a stretch, his shirt rumpled and his expression dazed. “No offense, but your floor is evil.” Pete groaned as he sat up, his glasses askew and his hair crushed on one side.

He winced as he stretched, rubbing the back of his neck. “I think it permanently changed the shape of my spine.”

Richie huffed a small laugh from his perch on the bed. “Told you. That corner over there has a grudge against humanity.”

“Yeah, well, my vertebrae agrees.” Pete flopped back dramatically for a second, then forced himself up again with a grunt.

“Your room’s kind of cozy, though. In a haunted Victorian attic sort of way.” Ruth murmured, stretching her arms.

“It’s my uncle’s old office,” Richie said, with a shrug that tried to seem indifferent. “I just kind of... made it work.”

Pete looked around—half-emptied bookshelves, posters tacked up with thumbtacks at odd angles, a lava lamp with a flickering bulb, a crammed sketchpad resting precariously on the desk, and shelves stuffed to the brim with expensive looking figurines. “You did good. It feels like you.”

Richie’s ears went a bit pink. “Yeah, well. I’m not great at, like... home décor.”

“You have a Mood Mix Vol. 1 CD,” Ruth pointed out, picking up the cracked jewel case from beside the stereo. “That’s practically vintage.”

“It’s ironic,” Richie mumbled.

“Sure it is,” Pete said, already nudging Ruth with a grin.

Ruth stood, brushing off her hoodie. “I’ll go see if your uncle’s awake. If I don't get caffeine soon, I’ll die.”

“I second that..my blood sugars getting low and I know you have the good hot chocolate”

Richie nodded. “Kitchen’s down the hall and to the left. He probably already left for work, but there’s coffee.”

The two headed out, leaving Richie alone in the room for a beat. He sat still on the bed, breathing in the quiet. It felt normal for a second. Like nothing was wrong. Like he wasn’t waiting for the shadows to shift or a voice to creep in from nowhere.

Just his room. Just his friends.

He leaned back slowly, arms crossed over his chest, eyes half-lidded.

It was easy to pretend, in that moment, that things hadn’t changed.

But the silence felt like it was holding its breath.

And Richie was trying really, really hard not to notice.

Richie lay sprawled across his bed, one arm draped over his eyes, the other resting limp on his chest. The covers were twisted under him, but he didn’t care.

The room was warm and still, the muffled voices of Ruth and Pete drifting faintly through the cracked door as they argued over cereal, coffee, hot chocolate, or all three.

For a moment, it was peaceful.

Not happy, not fixed—but quiet. And Richie would take quiet.

His eyes stayed shut. He focused on the rhythm of his breathing, the rise and fall of his chest. His limbs felt heavy in a good way, like gravity was finally doing its job instead of pulling him under.

For once, there wasn’t a shadow in the corner. No flicker in the mirror. Just sunlight and warmth and the soft hum of a house that was, at least for now, safe.

He almost let himself believe it.

Then something tapped the side of his desk.

He didn’t move. Maybe it was the house settling. Maybe it was nothing.

Clack.

A pen rolled off the edge and hit the floor.
Richie’s eyes opened, narrow and already annoyed. “Nope.”

He didn’t look right away. He just stared at the ceiling, lips pressed thin. Another shuffle. Something scraped lightly across his nightstand. Then a low, exaggerated sigh.

“Oh come on,” Richie groaned.

“Morning, sunshine,” Max’s voice drawled.

Richie tilted his head just enough to see Max standing at the foot of the bed, arms crossed, smirk plastered on like always.

He looked exactly like he had the last time—blood crusted on his collar, that letterman jacket somehow still smug.

A few books from the shelf were now on the floor, because of course they were.

“You’re the worst,” Richie muttered, dragging his arm off his face. “I was actually scared of you but now I just know your here to be a fucking nuisance”

Max chuckled and wandered toward the desk, trailing his fingers along its edge. “You looked all peaceful and tragic just now. Like one of those kids in an indie movie. Very brooding. I almost didn’t want to ruin it.”

“Then why did you?” Richie sat up halfway, still tangled in his blanket. “Wait—don’t answer that.”

Max shrugged. “Habit…I still feel the need to bully you. Even from beyond the grave”

He knocked over a cup of pens just to prove a point.

The clatter made Richie sit up fully, hair a mess, blanket bunched at his waist.

“Dude, really?”

He starts.

“You’re a menace,” he muttered into the mattress.

“You were getting too comfortable,” Max said, somewhere near the desk. “Didn’t want you forgetting I’m here.”

“I never forget,” Richie mumbled. “You don’t let me.”

Max wandered over, footsteps deliberately loud.

“You looked like you were trying to savor the silence. God forbid.”

Richie rolled onto his side just enough to glare at him.

“It was the first time all night the house wasn’t someone wasn’t snoring or you weren’t being an absolute dick.”

“So… this is your ‘me time’?” Max smirked.

“Lying on your bed like a corpse and praying no one talks?”

“Exactly,” Richie muttered, dragging the blanket up over his head. “Silence is golden. You’re like aluminum foil in a blender.”

Max clicked his tongue. “Richie, Richie, Richie. You wound me.”

“I’d argue you were worse alive, but I’d prefer being given a flick it ticket-“

‘Because it wouldn’t hurt’

Richie thinks.

“-than have you meddling with shit and being a fucking pain in my ass”

There was a pause, just long enough for Richie to hope he’d walked away. Then something small hit him through the blanket—probably one of the pens.

“Seriously? You need a fucking hobby dude”

“I have one,” Max said, grinning. “It’s bugging you.”

Richie glared. “And it’s weirdly consistent.”

There was quiet again, but now it felt… heavier somehow. Not hostile, just weighty. Max’s grin faded a little.

Richie exhaled and let himself slump back onto the bed.

Anyway,” Max said, pushing off the wall, “I’m gonna go knock over more of your shit before you fall asleep again.”

“Thanks,” Richie said dryly, turning his face back into the pillow. “I’ll treasure the chaos.”

Max hesitated. “Try not to dream about me too much, Lipschitz.”

Richie gave him the finger without looking up.

Max laughed, real and rough, and then he was gone—at least, out of the room.

The peace didn’t return, not exactly, but Richie didn’t mind as much.

He thought about how now, the guy he feared for years and made his life literal hell, was haunting him after a prank gone wrong.

Haunting is the wrong word.

Annoying him, after a prank gone wrong.

Max seemed more tame, more relaxed. More…max. The one he knew in primary.

He was still on edge. Sure, but he felt weirdly calm around him.

It was probably nothing.

————————————————————————

The front door clicked shut behind Pete and Ruth, their laughter still echoing faintly as they walked down the driveway. Richie stood there for a moment, listening to the quiet settle in around the house like dust.

The kind of quiet that wasn’t quite peaceful, more eerie. Or foreboding.

He ran a hand through his hair and wandered back into the lounge, the floorboards creaking slightly under his miku socks.

The couch sagged under him as he flopped down, grabbing the nearest throw pillow and hugging it to his chest. He didn’t turn the TV on. He just sat there, letting the silence stretch.

They had left just minutes ago, and yet the house already felt different. Emptier.

He tilted his head back, staring up at the ceiling.

Maybe now he could get a moment to just… breathe.

No pretending to be fine. No second-guessing whether Ruth had caught the way he kept glancing at the corner of the room. No feeling Pete’s gaze linger just a second too long when Richie flinched at nothing.

Just Richie. Alone.

Or, of course… not

Something clattered in the kitchen — not loud, just enough to be on purpose. Richie tensed.

“I swear to fucking god” he muttered. He didn’t move, didn’t look.

There was a pause, like even the air was waiting. Then a soft thump as something hit the floor just out of sight.

Richie sighed and sank lower into the couch, burying half his face into the pillow. “What do you want, Max?”

No answer. Just the faint, slow creak of footsteps making their way toward the living room.

Max was always solid. Always real in the worst kind of way. And right now, Richie could hear him being real — mud crusted shoes dragging slightly on the hardwood, probably on purpose. Probably smirking.

The footsteps stopped. Then a voice, smug as ever:

“Miss me already?”

Richie didn’t bother looking up. He tightened his grip on the pillow and let out a muffled, exhausted groan into it.

“No,” he said flatly. “I missed the part where you weren’t here.”

From the corner of the room, Max made a dramatic scoffing sound. “Rude.”

Richie finally peeked one eye open and turned his head just enough to glance over.

Max was leaning against the doorway like he owned the place—arms crossed, one trainer braced against the frame, eyes glittering with amusement.

Richie would be lying if he said max didn’t look hot as fuck.

“I could beat your fucking ass if I wanted too”

Max started-

“I’m just choosing not to…I’m what they call a merciful god”

Richie snorted and rolled his eyes.

“Say that to me what…4 weeks ago? After your poured milk on me”

Max went to speak but nothing came out.

“Or Pete what..3 weeks ago when his eye looked like he’d ran face first into as many brick walls as he could?”

Richie was sat up now, making direct eye contact.

“Well..in my defence..I hurt my knuckles too”

“Do you live to be annoying?” Richie asked, dry as sandpaper.

He kicked something off the end table with his foot—Richie’s phone charger, which hit the floor with a clatter and slid under the couch. Richie closed his eyes again and muttered something that was probably a curse.

“Just… five minutes,” Richie said. “Five minutes of silence.”

Max wandered closer. Not loud, not threatening—just there. The way he always was, now. A presence Richie couldn’t shake, like a memory that refused to fade.

“Silence is boring,” Max said, dropping unceremoniously into the armchair across from him. It creaked under his weight, and Richie winced slightly at the noise.

“Maybe you’re boring,” Richie muttered.

“Harsh.”

They sat in quiet for a few seconds. Not comfortable silence—tense, like a string pulled too tight.

Richie stared at the ceiling again, jaw clenched. Max shifted in the chair, drumming his fingers against the arm.

“…They seemed cool,” Max said eventually.

Richie blinked. He turned his head a fraction.

“What?”

“The nerds,” Max clarified, with a crooked smile. “Flemwad and micropeter? Seems like they actually give a damn.”

Richie frowned, trying to read him. There was no obvious malice in Max’s voice, but there was that usual edge. Like he was dancing around something deeper.

“They do,” Richie said carefully. “They’re… good people.”

“Doesn’t mean they get it,” Max said.
Richie sat up slightly. “And you do?”

Max shrugged one shoulder. “I get you.”
That hung in the air for a moment.

“I never really wanted to bully you after 7th grade”

Max started.

“It was my fucking dad”

Richie felt his gaze soften.

“He always said you look faggy…too much like a girl”

The smaller boy caught a glimpse of remorse, but felt a growing pit in his stomach.

“I’m not a girl”

Richie assured, mostly to himself.

“I fucking know that”

Max murmurs.

“But..my dad was a dick and said if I didn’t stop being friends with you he’d-“

He stops himself, biting his lip.

“And after a while people just..expect it…from you..I guess. I created an ecosystem that could break down if I started showing you respect”

He pauses again.

“The respect you..deserved”

Richie’s cheeks flushed slightly.

“I think that’s why I’m stuck to you”

He continues-

“Cuz..i obviously felt bad for flem- Ruth and Peter but…”

His hand is awkwardly scratching his neck now.

“I think..I have to make things right”

There’s a beat of quiet as Richie gathers his thoughts, thinking about what to say.

“That doesn’t make what you did okay”

Richie starts.

“At all”

Max nods, looking solemn yet accepting.

“But I’m willing to…I don’t know. Give you a chance? Maybe if you’d stop fucking pushing my expensive stuff over”

Max’s head lolls to the side.

“Fuck you”

Richie adds, as max pushes another object to the floor.

Chapter Text

Richie knew something was wrong the second he stepped onto campus.

It wasn’t the air—though it had that familiar tinge of janitor bleach and overcooked cafeteria mystery meat.

It wasn’t the kids yelling at each other across the quad, or the slow, dragging weight of another day in hell..

It was the feeling. That gut-deep squirm. Like he was being watched.

I mean, of course he was. Even without max he was a social outcast but…this was different.

He pulled his hoodie tighter and kept walking.

"You gonna pretend you don’t see me now, Lipschitz?" came a voice directly behind him, smooth and smug and definitely not supposed to be here.

Richie froze. "You’ve got to be kidding me."

Max Jagerman stepped up beside him, hands in his letterman jacket pockets, smirk locked and loaded. He was a little see-through in the sunlight, which helped slightly with Richie’s impending public meltdown.

“What, you thought I was just gonna stay in your house like some sad little attic ghost? Im branching out”

“You’re not supposed to branch out to our…MY…school,” Richie hissed.

“Why not?” Max matched Richie’s pace, hands in his pockets, passing through a slow-moving freshman like fog. “I thought we were giving each other a chance.”

“A chance,” Richie muttered, “does not mean haunting me through first period.”

Max tilted his head, that same half-smile playing on his mouth—like this was all a game.

“I’ve been dead for two and a half weeks. It’s not like I’ve got a whole social calendar. You’re the only one who can even see me.”

“Plus…it’s not like a have a house other than yours to go back to”

Max said it like it didn’t matter. Like he wasn’t standing just a little too close, hands shoved in the pockets of that same letterman jacket he’d died in.

Richie stopped on the front steps, halfway to the door. The crowd of students swarmed around them, none of them seeing what Richie did—Max Jagerman, solid as ever, scuffing his shoe on the concrete like this was any other school day morning

Richie stared at him. “What do you mean, you don’t—?”

Max shrugged, eyes fixed somewhere over Richie’s shoulder. “They packed up my room. My stuff. Tossed half of it. Guess Jagermans don’t mourn long.”

The words hung in the air. Max didn’t look sad. Not exactly. Just... blank. Like someone had hit a light switch in his chest.

Richie swallowed. “That doesn’t mean you get to follow me to school.”

Max’s attention flicked back to him, a half-smile curling on his lips. “You said you’d give me a chance. Didn’t realize there were rules.”

“There are,” Richie muttered, tugging his hoodie sleeves down. “Rule one: don’t haunt my goddamn geometry class.”

Max grinned wider. “Noted. So... gym’s fine?”
Richie groaned and pushed open the school doors, letting the buzz of fluorescent lights and slamming lockers swallow them whole.

————————————————————————

Richie slid into his seat seconds before the bell. Max had already made himself comfortable—leaning on Richie’s desk like it was his personal throne, legs stretched out, fingers tapping out an imaginary drum beat.

No one else reacted. To them, Richie was sitting alone.

To Richie, Max was very much there. Solid, smug, and apparently set on ruining his GPA.

“Think your teacher would freak if I sneezed?” Max whispered, acting like anyone else but Richie could hear, resting his chin in his hand. “Or should I wait until he’s mid-lecture and just gasp dramatically?”

“Don’t,” Richie muttered, not looking up from his notebook.

“Oh, come on. You don’t miss me even a little? You’re the one who got me to talk last night.”

“That doesn’t mean I want you crawling up my spine during class.”

Max leaned in closer, lowering his voice. “You said you wanted honesty. This is me, being honest—I’m bored out of my mind. You’re the only thing that makes being dead slightly less miserable.”

Richie’s pen paused. The words came out more defensively than he meant. “Don’t put that on me.”

Max pulled back slightly, expression unreadable for once. “Wasn’t trying to. Just... talking.”

The silence that followed was awkward. And somehow heavier than all the noise in the room.

All around him, chairs scraped, kids rustled in backpacks, someone coughed hard enough to make the teacher flinch—but Richie felt none of it. Just the way Max’s presence pressed in at his side, not touching, not talking, just there. Solid and warm and humming like electricity under his skin.

Mr. Cowen droned on about constitutional amendments. Max stayed perched at the corner of Richie’s desk, legs dangling like he owned the place.

Richie tried to focus on his notes, scratching out a few words. His handwriting was shaky.

—1st Amendment: Freedom of Speech, Religion, Press…

Max leaned down, whispering directly into Richie’s ear, “Which one is the amendment that protects ghosts from terminal boredom?”

Richie jerked slightly, his pen smearing across the page. “Will you shut up?” he hissed under his breath.

The girl in front of him half-turned in her seat, eyebrows knitting together for a second. Richie quickly ducked his head.

Max smirked, voice low. “See, I knew you missed me.”

“I didn’t.”

“Sure. That’s why you keep looking at me like I’m a pop quiz you forgot to study for.”

Richie gave him a sideways glare.

Max shrugged, the movement casual. “It’s not like I’m trying to mess with you. I just don’t want to—y’know—sit in your attic and rot. If I had a phone, I’d be doomscrolling right now.”

“Well, you don’t,” Richie snapped softly. “Because you’re dead.”

That word hung between them.
Max’s face twitched—just briefly. His smirk faltered. Not gone, just... cracked.

“Yeah,” he said finally. “Guess I am.”

Richie stared down at his notes. He hated how that made his chest ache a little.

“I didn’t mean—” he started.

Max cut in, gently, “I know. It’s fine.”

The silence this time wasn’t heavy. Just kind of... sad. Quiet in a way Richie didn’t have words for.

He picked up his pen again. Max didn't say another word for the rest of class. But he didn’t leave, either.

————————————————————————

The school emptied slowly, a dragging kind of silence settling in as last period trickled into nothing. Richie slipped into the disabled bathroom before the rush of lockers and backpacks swallowed the hall.

He didn’t have to change here anymore. It was habit, mostly. And... safety. Even post-op, he wasn’t ready for the locker room. He’d stared at himself in the mirror a thousand times, running fingers along the scars he’d chosen, earned, paid for with years and paperwork and waiting and waiting—and still, some days they didn’t feel like enough.

Some days they felt like everything he had.

He tugged off his hoodie and t-shirt in one motion, folding them neatly on top of his bag. The cool air raised goosebumps across his chest. The scars were pale now, healed into fine, straight lines across skin that still didn’t feel like it was entirely his.

He exhaled through his nose. It was stupid. No one was watching.

But, he knew someone was watching.

Richie didn’t even have to look up , The air just…changed—the kind of shift you can feel in your ribs, subtle and heavy, like a magnet pulling at your spine

“Damn,” Max said, leaning lazily against the tiled wall. “Didn’t realize the afterlife came with front-row seats.”

Richie jumped, grabbing for his shirt like it was armor. “Jesus Christ—Max! Get the hell out!”

Max held up his hands, not moving. “Relax. I’ve seen a torso before.”

“Well, you don’t get to see mine.” Richie shoved the shirt on hard enough to nearly rip a seam. His face burned.

Max didn’t smirk the way he usually did. But he didn’t look away, either. “You’re toned, Lipschitz, guess it makes sense though…I see you practicing backflips for zeeks little routine. I always wondered what you were hiding under those oversized sweaters though.”

“Yeah, well,” Richie muttered. “People don’t stare when you wear three layers and avoid eye contact.”

Max gave a low whistle. “No wonder you always looked like a haunted Victorian orphan.”

Richie shot him a look. “You bullied me. You don’t get to make jokes about it.”

Max raised a brow, stepping a little closer, his voice soft but teasing. “We were friends before I started being an asshole. Don’t act like you forgot.”

Richie didn’t answer. He was busy folding his gym shirt, fingers too tight around the fabric.

“I used to come to your house after school,” Max went on. “Your uncle made weird grilled cheese sandwiches with pickles in ‘em. You made paper frogs that could jump.”

“That was third grade.”

Richie snorted. “Until you decided being seen with me wasn’t worth losing your dad’s approval.”

Max shrugged, unbothered. “He was a jackass.”

“You didn’t think so then.”

“I did,” Max said. “I just didn’t have the balls to say it out loud.”

There’s silence.

“Also my mom was still around…he was…less dickey back then”

Richie went quiet. Max took another step forward.

He looked at him—not in that mocking way Richie was used to, not the cafeteria laughter or the classroom jabs. Just… curious. Focused. That old Max intensity, but quieter now. Something real under all the swagger

“You’re different,” Max said, scanning Richie’s face. “Not in a bad way. Just… more you.”

Richie looked away.

There was a long beat of silence, heavy but not sharp. Not like before.

“You’ve got a couple scars,” Max said, tone still light. “I’ve got a corpse. We’re all working through something.”

Richie let out a short, bitter laugh despite himself.

“Why are you here?” he asked. “Really.”

Max shrugged again. “Maybe I missed you.”

“You didn’t even like me.”

“I used to like you. A lot,” Max said casually. “Then I got scared. And stupid. Then I died. You know. Classic redemption arc setup.”

Richie looked at him carefully. “You’re not trying very hard to redeem yourself.”

Max grinned. “That’s part of the charm.”

Richie shook his head, mouth twitching despite everything.

Max moved just a little closer, still not touching.

“You were the smartest kid I knew, Rich. Weird as hell. But you were good.”

Richie folded his arms. “And now?”

“Still weird,” Max said. “Still good.”
He paused. “And hot, apparently.”

Richie’s whole face went red. “Jesus Christ, shut up.”

Max laughed. “Hey, just sayin’. Zeeke really turned you from scrawny to…less scrawny. Kind of impressive.”

Richie gave him a long, guarded look. “You don’t know anything about me anymore.”

“Then tell me,” Max said simply. “Or don’t. But I’m sticking around.”

“For how long?”

Max leaned against the wall again, casual as ever. “No clue. Eternity, if I’m lucky.”

Richie grabbed his bag. “You’re such a pain in the ass.”

Max grinned. “Yeah. But you used to like that about me.”

Richie shoved past him toward the door, heart hammering.

And maybe—maybe—he liked it still.

Just a little.

Chapter Text

Richie was sweat-soaked and dying.

The mascot costume was heavy even on a good day, but after a two-hour practice under the sun and Coach Clark’s “motivational” screaming, Richie felt like he’d just climbed out of a swamp. He hadn’t even changed out of the shirt he wore under the suit yet—just peeled it off in the staff bathroom like always, Max standing nearby pretending not to look.

Pretending very badly.

He hadn’t bothered putting on a clean one. It was late. He just wanted to get home.

The football team was still celebrating behind him when he came out of the disabled toilet, hyped for the big game on Friday, screaming and whooping as if someone had just won the lottery instead of a pep rally.

Richie just wanted a Gatorade and a long nap.

He trudged across the back parking lot, heading for the sidewalk.

“Smell that?” Richie muttered, kicking a pebble off the sidewalk as he trudged toward the street. “That’s the smell of feet and despair.”

Beside him, Max made a face. “That’s you. You smell like… burnt foam and sadness.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“I’m just saying,” Max said, drifting a little closer, hands in his jacket pockets, “for someone who was flipping and dancing like a caffeinated squirrel, you didn’t exactly stick the landing.”

“I landed,” Richie shot back.

“I just...it’s hard to see in that suit okay?”

Max snorted. “You collapsed like a drowned muppet.”

“Coming from a dead guy in an outdated letterman jacket, I’m not exactly moved.”

They crossed the parking lot together, Max's steps weirdly in sync with his. Richie glanced sideways at him. Even in death, Max looked golden—wind-tousled hair, sharp jaw, posture like he owned every room he walked into, even the ones he haunted

It would’ve been annoying if it wasn’t so unfairly hot.

“You’re still following me,” Richie said after a few steps.

“I don’t really have a choice..it’s this or a void of black…your more entertaining”

“That supposed to be a compliment?”

Max smiled, sly. “That depends. You want it to be?”

Richie rolled his eyes. “God, you’re exhausting.”

“But charming.”

“debatable.”

They walked on in silence for a moment. The sky was washed in pink and gold, painting their shadows long across the pavement. Richie’s shirt stuck to his back with sweat. He hadn’t bothered with a binder—he didn’t wear one anymore—but his skin itched and his muscles ached and he could already hear Uncle Paul saying-

you smell like you fought a raccoon in a sauna, kid.

“You didn’t even change,” Max said suddenly, nodding toward Richie’s damp shirt.

“I don’t change at school.”

“Still?” Max asked, then realized. “Right. Locker rooms.”

Richie didn’t answer.

Max added, more careful this time, “You changed earlier. In the bathroom.”

Richie raised an eyebrow. “Doing gymnastics in 50 different layers isn’t advisable…I make an exception for zeeke”

Max shrugged like it was nothing, but his eyes were a little too sharp. “Wasn’t complaining.”

Max opened his mouth like he had a comeback lined up—and then paused.

He looked at Richie more carefully this time, like he was trying to figure something out but didn’t want to ask the question yet. Something about the scars, maybe. Or the way Richie stood a little differently now, like his body made a little more sense.

Richie beat him to it.

“You look like you’ve got something to say.”

Max blinked. “Do I?”

“You’ve got that face. The one you used to make when you forgot your science homework and tried to act cool about it.”

“I always looked cool.”

“Sure,” Richie said. “Like a wet ferret.”
Max laughed. It was real, sudden, a little too loud.

Max glanced at the front door as Richie stepped up the porch. The light was on inside — warm and familiar. Faint voices drifted through the window, the low hum of a TV and the scrape of dinner plates. It smelled like someone had actually cooked.

Max followed automatically, close behind. His steps didn’t make a sound, but he moved like they should’ve — like this was normal. Like he belonged.

He reached the top stair right as Richie put his hand on the doorknob.

“You gonna hold the door for me or what?” Max asked, smirking.

Richie didn’t look at him. “You’re not coming in.”

That stopped Max short.

He tilted his head. “What? Why not?”

Richie turned, arms crossed, posture already shifting into the you should know better mode Max remembered from back when they were kids — back when Richie used to scold him for tracking dirt into the kitchen or swiping an extra pudding cup.
“You think Paul’s not gonna notice me talking to myself?” Richie asked.

Max scoffed. “I was here all the time when we were kids.”

“Yeah. When we were kids. Before you started acting like I was contagious. And before you were dead!”

That hit harder than it should have, and for once Max didn’t have a snappy comeback. His jaw tensed, and he looked away — just for a second.

But Richie didn’t linger on it. He sighed and softened, glancing back at the door.

“Look,” he said. “You’ve been tailing me for what? Three days?”

“Four,” Max muttered.

Richie shot him another exasperated look.

Max gave him a crooked smile. “So… is that a no?”

“If you come in, I’ll have to explain why I’m talking to the wall. And why I keep glancing at one specific spot like I’m checking out someone only I can see.”

Max blinked. “I—wait—are you saying—”

“I’m saying,” Richie cut in smoothly, “if you follow me inside, I might get too distracted by how close you’re standing.”

Max’s mouth opened. Then closed. Then opened again.

Richie leaned just a little closer, enough for Max to feel the shift in air — like gravity had tilted between them.

“And that’d be a real problem, wouldn’t it?” Richie murmured, just barely smiling. “For a ghost who keeps acting like he doesn’t care.”

Max made a noise that might’ve been a protest. Or a plea. Or maybe a single, overloaded brain cell short-circuiting.

But Richie had already turned away.

“See you later, Max,” he said over his shoulder, casual as anything. Then he stepped inside and shut the door behind him.

Click.

Max stood frozen on the porch, staring at the spot where Richie had just been.
It was quiet now. Just the porch light buzzing, the faint breeze rustling through the trees. The windows glowed warm, but Max stayed right where he was — stunned, silent.

And then, finally, in the dark:

“…am I really finding Richie hot? What have I gotten myself into”

Chapter Text

The front door creaked open as Richie stepped inside, flushed and sweat-damp from practice and the walk home. He kicked off his shoes with a sigh and leaned against the wall for a second, hoodie sleeves pushed up and cheeks still hot — and not just from the heat.

He muttered to himself, “I can’t believe I flirted back.”

Because he had.

And it was Actually something kind of clever and kind of suggestive.

And Max — Max Jagerman, literal monster turned ghostly nuisance — had looked like someone knocked the wind out of him. Like Richie had landed a punch he didn’t see coming.

That image stuck with Richie even now: Max, standing stupidly in the driveway, blinking after him like a
deer caught in the headlights of his own feelings.

From the lounge came sounds of playful banter and Fleetwood Mac crooning from the speaker.

Paul’s voice floated out next — cheerful, animated, slightly off tune.

It could probably explain why he used three different kinds of cheese in whatever dish he could smell wafting from the kitchen.

Emma chimed in with a mock-scandalized gasp and an “Paul, you’re such a dad.”

Definitely not a date.

“Hey, Richie” Emma called, like she’d been waiting for him.

“We saved you some garlic bread. It may or may not be a little burnt.”

“I blame the wine,” Paul added.

Richie peeled off his hoodie, trying to look less wrecked than he felt. “Thanks. I’ll heat it up.”Richie muttered, and before Paul or Emma could respond, he grabbed the plate and ducked into the kitchen, away from the…interesting singing.

He moved like a ghost himself — quiet, tired, trying not to be noticed. The lemony garlic pasta was already congealing a little on the plate, the corner of the garlic bread slightly burned, but he didn’t care. It was food. It was warm. And it was something to do with his hands.

He popped the plate in the microwave and leaned on the counter while it spun. The overhead light buzzed softly, casting long shadows against the tile. In the background, he could still hear Paul and Emma chatting in the dining room, their voices warm and overlapping. Not quite flirting, but dancing around it in the way adults seemed to think was subtle.

The microwave beeped. Richie pulled the plate out carefully — too hot — and hissed through his teeth as he shifted it between his hands and grabbed a fork.

He could’ve stayed and eaten in the kitchen or could’ve slunk into the living room, joining Paul and Emma in whatever debarcle was happening just a few rooms away.

But he needed space.

Still a little overheated from practice — and maybe even more from what happened afterward — Richie carried the plate up the stairs and nudged his bedroom door shut behind him.

He dropped onto the edge of his bed, cross-legged and after a second of clarity, He took a bite.

Not bad.

The sauce was rich, creamy, and lemony. Paul was a socially awkward guy, but he knew how to cook.

Richie let the food fill the silence. He didn’t turn on music or his busted computer. Instead, he just sat there in the soft, settling quiet of his room, eating and trying very hard not to replay that look Max had given him when Richie flirted back.

He’d been so smug the whole walk home — teasing, tailing him like a puppy with an attitude — and Richie, against all odds, had responded. Actually threw something back. And Max had stuttered. Literally. Like his brain blue-screened.

It had felt like winning a game Richie didn’t even know he was playing.

He stabbed another piece of chicken and muttered to himself, “I shouldn’t have said that.”

But his lips were twitching.

The fork clinked against the plate as he took another bite — and then, from nowhere:

“You should’ve said it sooner.”

Richie nearly choked.

Max was suddenly there, lounging in his gaming chair like he’d grown out of the shadows. His feet were propped up on the side of Richie’s dresser, arms crossed, grin stupid and shining with triumph.

“Jesus—” Richie coughed. “Do you have to sneak in like that?”

“You unconsciously invited me into your house when I got tethered to you” Max said, feigning innocence. “I didn’t realize that didn’t include your room.”

Richie narrowed his eyes, cheeks still flushed. “You’re the worst.”

“Am I?” Max grinned. “Because you seemed very into me about an hour ago.”

“I was tired. Heatstroke. Delirium.”

“Oh, sure.” Max waggled his eyebrows.
“Nothing to do with me being ridiculously good-looking.”

Richie groaned and flopped back on his bed, the plate still balanced on his stomach. “Why are you like this?”

Max leaned forward a little. “Because if I’m not charming, I’m terrifying. And I don’t really wanna be either around you right now.”

That… quieted Richie.

He sat up slowly, his expression sobering.
Max wasn’t looking at him anymore. He was watching the wall, the way light filtered through the curtains and painted the room in stripes.

“So…” he began softly. “Why do you live with your uncle? …and that freaky barista that wouldn’t sing when I tipped her.”

Richie stiffened. His appetite vanished in an instant.

“That’s—” he set the plate aside. “It’s a story for a different time.”

Max glanced over, not pressing. Not teasing.
“Okay.”

A beat.

“My dad sucked too,” Max added, voice rougher than usual. “he just… wanted something from me I didn’t know how to be.”

He looked down at his hands. “When I started hating people, I think I thought it’d hurt less.”

Richie studied him in the fading light.

“You’re not the same guy from school.”

Max snorted. “I’m dead, Lipschitz. I kind of had to evolve.”

“You’re still annoying,” Richie said, but it was gentle now.

“You love it” max sneered, with no real malice.

Richie smiled slightly, before putting the half empty bowl on his nightstand and pulling the blanket up over his legs.

Without another word, he curled onto his side, head on his pillow, breathing slowly evening out.

Max stayed.

Watched.

“So your that kind of pervert. Didn’t take you for the stalker type”

Richie murmured, and max could practically hear the smile in his words.

“You love it”

Max repeated, and Richie felt his face heat up.

And when Richie finally drifted to sleep, Max stood up, crossed the room, and gently pulled the blanket higher. His fingers hovered near Richie’s forehead for a moment.

Then, quietly, he leaned in — and pressed the faintest kiss to his temple.

“Night, Richie,” Max whispered.

Chapter Text

The house was silent, save for the soft hum of the refrigerator and the occasional creak of settling wood. Max stood at the threshold of Richie's bedroom, watching the gentle rise and fall of his ‘friend's’ chest as he slept. The moonlight filtered through the curtains, casting a silvery glow over the room.

Max turned away, his footsteps soundless as he made his way down the hallway. The walls were adorned with family photos—snapshots of moments frozen in time. He paused before one: a younger Richie, grinning beside a man who bore a striking resemblance to him. Paul, Max presumed. The warmth in their expressions was palpable, a stark contrast to the coldness Max remembered from his own family portraits.

Descending the stairs, Max entered the living room. The remnants of dinner lingered in the air—a mix of garlic, lemon, and something sweet. He sank into the couch, the cushions molding to his form. The silence was comforting, a stark contrast to the chaos that often filled his mind.

He thought back to the day's events: the walk home, the unexpected flirtation, Richie's flushed cheeks. It was a side of Richie Max hadn't seen before—vulnerable, open. It stirred something within him, a longing he hadn't realized he possessed.

Max's gaze drifted to the fireplace, its hearth cold and empty. He remembered the warmth of his own home, the crackling fire, the scent of pine. But those memories were tainted by harsh words and unmet expectations. His father's disappointment—it all came rushing back.

He stood, moving towards the kitchen. The dishes from dinner were neatly stacked in the sink, a testament to the household's orderliness. Max ran his fingers along the countertop, feeling the coolness of the granite beneath his touch.

Opening the fridge, he surveyed its contents: leftover pasta, a half-empty bottle of wine, a container of strawberries. He smiled, recalling Richie's disdain for the fruit when they were younger. "Too tart," he'd said once, scrunching his nose in distaste.

Max closed the fridge, his reflection briefly visible in the stainless steel. He barely recognized himself—no longer the confident quarterback, but a ghost of his former self, both literally and figuratively.

He wandered back into the hallway, his footsteps leading him to a closed door. He hesitated before opening it, revealing a study filled with bookshelves and a large desk. Papers were neatly organized, a laptop sat closed in the center. He imagined Paul spending hours here, immersed in overdue work or perhaps writing.

Max approached the window, pulling back the curtain to reveal the backyard bathed in moonlight. The garden was well-maintained, flowers blooming even in the dim light. A swing set stood in the corner, its chains swaying gently in the breeze.

He remembered playing on a similar swing set with Richie when they were kids, their laughter echoing through the air. Those were simpler times, before life grew complicated.

Returning upstairs, Max paused outside Richie's bedroom once more. He pushed the door open gently, the hinges creaking softly. Richie remained asleep, his face peaceful.

Max stepped closer, eyes fixed on Richie’s face — soft in sleep, the lines of worry gone, jaw slack with exhaustion. His hair was a little messy from the walk home, sticking up at weird angles. His freckles looked more obvious in the moonlight.

Max lingered.

He should’ve left — faded out into darkness and haunt somewhere else for the night. But his feet didn’t move. He just stood there in the half-dark, watching Richie breathe. Something in his chest clenched.

This was dangerous. The way his heart twisted now — the tightness behind his ribs, the way his breath caught when Richie smiled, even when it was small and bitter — it scared the hell out of him.

He wasn’t supposed to feel this. Not anymore. Not again.

But the way Richie had looked at him earlier… the little smirk, the flicker of confidence, the way his voice had dipped when he threw Max’s own flirting back at him — it had shaken Max to his bones.

Not just because it was hot, which it totally was, but because it reminded him what it used to be like. Before

Before seventh grade. Before everything had gone to shit.

Before he’d let someone else ruin what they had

Max moved back a little and sat in Richie’s cute cat desk chair, the quiet creak of it making him wince. Richie didn’t stir. The blanket rose and fell with each slow breath.

They’d been friends since third grade. Max remembered the first time they met — Richie had been wearing a dinosaur hoodie, so small his backpack practically dragged on the floor. Max had offered him half of his fruit snacks without even thinking about it.

They used to build blanket forts. Eat too many Popsicles. Play tag until the sun went down.
Max had liked Richie even then — not just liked, but liked. In that weird, secret way kids didn’t have a name for yet. He just always wanted Richie to be around. Always wanted to make him laugh.

He remembered the first time he realized what it meant.

He was twelve. Sitting in the backseat of his dad’s truck after football practice, all sweaty and sore and filled with this sudden, terrifying certainty. He’d been watching Richie at lunch earlier — watching the way his laugh lit up his whole face, the way he’d leaned into Max’s shoulder when he talked — and something inside him had clicked.

“I think I like Richie,” he’d said, so soft it was almost a whisper.

He hadn’t meant to say it out loud.

But the car had screeched stop and His dad’s hand had come down across his face before he even finished the sentence.

Max flinched at the memory, jaw tightening.

It wasn’t the slap itself that haunted him, though it hurt like hell.

It was the silence afterward. The disgust in his dad’s eyes. Like Max had said something shameful, unfixable. Like he’d broken some unspoken rule.

“I don’t raise fucking queers in this house,” his father had said.

And the next day, Max started pulling away. Pretending Richie was annoying. Rolling his eyes, cutting him off. By seventh grade, he’d fully committed — teasing him, pushing buttons, saying cruel things he didn’t mean.

His dad thought he was finally “acting right.”

Max had hated himself.

He leaned forward now, resting his arms on his knees. Richie stirred a little in his sleep but didn’t wake. Just murmured something unintelligible and curled in tighter under the blanket Max had given him.

It would’ve been easier if Richie hadn’t forgiven him. If he’d told Max to screw off that first day he reappeared. If he hadn’t said, "Fine. I’ll give you a chance."

It would’ve been easier to stay angry.

But Richie had looked at him like maybe — maybe — he still saw that kid from third grade. The one who shared fruit snacks and knew his favorite Power Ranger. And that… that was what terrified Max the most.

Because he still loved that kid, too.

Loved who Richie had become — sharp and kind and hurting and still here. Loved the way he held himself like someone who’d had to fight too hard to stay soft. Loved the way he kept choosing to try.

Max stared at his hands.

He was scared.

Scared of what this meant. Of what it would mean if Richie looked at him like that again. If he kept smiling like he didn’t hate him. If Max kept leaning in. If this… thing between them kept growing.

Because love had always been something Max associated with pain. With disappointment. With giving too much and being punished for it.

And yet, here he was — a ghost in a boy’s bedroom, watching him sleep and wondering what it would feel like to be held by someone who didn’t want anything from him but the truth.

What if he let himself want this?

What if he didn’t run?

Max stood slowly, walking over to the side of the bed. Richie’s lips were parted slightly, a tiny crease between his brows. Even in sleep, he looked like he was bracing for something.

“Wish I could take it all back,” Max whispered, voice barely audible. “Everything I said. Everything I didn’t.”

He crouched beside the bed, heart pounding despite the fact that technically it wasn’t beating anymore.

Richie’s hand had fallen out from under the blanket. Max didn’t touch it. He didn’t think he could survive what that would feel like right now.

Instead, he looked at him — really looked.
And he thought, If I had just told him the truth… maybe we never would've stopped being friends. Maybe we could’ve been more.

Max leaned in — slowly, carefully — and kissed Richie’s forehead again, this time lingering just a second longer.

“I’m scared of falling in love with you,” he whispered.

Then he stood.

And as the shadows shifted around him, Max stepped back and vanished into the quiet.

Chapter Text

Saturday morning dawned with as much whimsy as hatchetfield could muster: birds chirping like they hadn’t seen the horrors of man, sprinklers hissing like snakes in the grass, and Richie blinking at his ceiling with the crushing realization that he had no plans.

Uncle Paul was already out the door by 8:00 a.m., something about a computer emergency —“I’d explain but then I’d have to explain how teds computer has 50 porn viruses,” he’d said with an awkward laugh, on which covered the depravity of the situation, keys jangling in his fist. “Don’t burn the house down.” He’d shouted, closing the door behind him with a click.

Richie, now officially Alone, willed himself out of bed and shuffled into the kitchen in his socked feet, hair sticking up in every which way.

Yawning softly, he grabbed a bowl, poured himself some Frosted Flakes knockoffs and—

“You know,” said a voice behind him, “you always go for the same cereal. Ever try mixing it up?”

The spoon clattered into the bowl, milk sloshing onto the kitchen table.

“Jesus Christ, Max!” Richie hissed.

Max Jagerman leaned against the fridge in his trademark jeans and that damn letterman jacket, arms folded over his chest, looking like he belonged in a 90s teen drama.

“Morning, princess,” he said, his voice a lazy drawl. “Sleep well? Or were you too busy dreaming about me again?”

Richie picked up his spoon and glared over the rim of his cereal bowl. “It’s 9 a.m. on a Saturday. Cut me some slack max”

Max grinned and stepped away from the fridge, his shoes making no sound on the tile. “Because I’m dead, Richie. Consequences don’t apply to me anymore. I can say whatever I want, do whatever I want… and haunt the shit out of you while you eat those sad, soggy flakes.”

“They’re not sad. They’re nostalgic.”

“They’re depression in a bowl.”

“You’re depression in a jacket,” Richie
muttered, stabbing his cereal with emphasis.

Max whistled, low and amused, and dropped into the seat across from him. “You wound me, Lipschitz. And after I spent all night floating near your closet making sure that creepy puppet from our childhood didn’t come to life.”

Richie rolled his eyes, but the corner of his mouth twitched. Max had only been around for a few days, but already, Richie’s house felt less empty. Less echoey. Less like a place he was surviving and more like… a place he was living.

Richie didn’t want to admit it, but he liked having Max there.

He also didn’t want to think too hard about what that meant.

“So what’s on the Richie Lipschitz Saturday Agenda?” Max asked, feet up on the table like
a rude ghost raccoon.

“Gonna go hit the arcade? Paint your nails? Cry to Mitski while staring into the distance like it personally offended you?”

Richie scoffed and chewed slowly.

“Well, I was gonna watch cartoons and maybe take a nap, but now I’m considering stabbing a ghost with my spoon.”

Max smirked. “You’d miss me.”
Richie didn't answer. He just looked at him for a second, longer than he meant to, and Max looked back—steady, cocky, but soft around the edges.

Richie’s looked away first.

————————————————————————

Around noon, the house was sunlit and silent. Uncle Paul was still out doing his whole “trying to stop teds computer from exploding” thing, which left Richie alone with Max and the creeping realization that he didn’t actually know what to do with himself when no one was telling him who to be.

He ended up sprawled across the couch, legs over one armrest, hoodie over his face.

Max sat cross-legged on the coffee table, tossing a coin he found somewhere, smiling like it was the most precious thing in the world.

Richie wished max would look at him like that.

Richie lifted his hoodie just enough to get max’s attention.

“Don’t you ever get bored?”

“I’m dead,” Max said, putting the coin down. “Boredom’s the only currency left. Well, that and existential dread. But that one doesn’t buy you as many snacks.”

“You can’t eat snacks.”

“Exactly. Life is suffering.”

Richie snorted, pulled out a weed pen from under the couch cushion, and took a hit, groaning loudly, his lungs burning with a sweet high.

Max cocked an eyebrow. “Didn’t Paul tell you to quit not…24 Hours ago”

Richie laughs, cold and fragile.

“It helps me relax”

He starts.

“And he’s not here right now and I’m not worried about being caught”

Max just laughed, warm and shameless, but Richie could see the worry hidden behind his eyes, a silent pity that made Richie’s skin crawl in a way he couldn’t describe.

Richie took another long drag and let the buzz ease into his bones. It was easier like this—quiet and hazy. Max’s presence, while annoying, had become weirdly comforting. Familiar. Like a blanket that occasionally insulted your fashion choices.

Max leaned forward a little, studying him. “You get high a lot?”

Richie shrugged. “Only when I need to not feel like a walking trauma dump.”

Max didn’t joke that time. He just looked at him once again with those eyes—blue and sharp and uncomfortably perceptive.

Richie fidgeted, took another hit. “You know I didn’t always live here, right?”

Max stayed silent.

“My parent’s…They’re not… around.”

Richie’s fingers retreated to the bridge of his nose.

He looked down at the pen in his hand-

“They kicked me out,” Richie said, voice low and hoarse.

Max, who’d been fiddling with the sleeve of his letterman, froze.

He looked over at Richie, eyes narrowing just a bit, not in anger—more like he was trying to make sure he heard right.

Richie didn’t look at him.

“I was seven,” he said. “Second grade.”
Max blinked.

“What the hell could a seven-year-old do to get kicked out?”

“I told them I was a boy.”

The room shifted. Not literally—just in the way that moments do, like gravity suddenly had its hands around both of their throats.

Max stared. “Wait. What?”

“I told them I was a boy,” Richie repeated, more firmly this time. “I didn’t have all the words yet. I just knew. I said it at the breakfast table. My mom dropped her coffee cup. My dad didn’t say anything. He just… stared at me like I’d grown a second head. By that night, they had a suitcase packed.”

Max opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again.

“They said I was confused. That I was embarrassing them. That I was breaking God’s plan, whatever the hell that means to people who can’t be bothered to hug their own kid.”

Richie took another hit from the pen, trying to push down the pressure behind his eyes.

“They didn’t even let me grab my favorite book. Just shoved me out and told me to live with Paul until I ‘fixed myself.’”

He sniffled, rubbing his sleeve across his nose.

“I used to lie awake, wondering if maybe I dreamed the whole thing. That my parents were gonna show up the next day and apologize. That I’d get to go home. I didn’t even get to say goodbye to my fish.”

Max was still watching him, silent, stunned.
Richie glanced over, misreading the quiet.

“Yeah,” he said, voice wobbling. “That’s the look people get. That little oh shit face. You didn’t know, did you?”

“No,” Max said honestly.

There was a pause.

Richie’s mouth tightened.

He laughed again, but now it cracked, ugly. “Awesome. Cool. Okay. Great. Guess I just scared off the only ghost who’s ever made me feel halfway safe which is fucking weird thinking about it. Should’ve kept my mouth shut.”

He wiped his face, angrily this time, embarrassed and spiraling. “God, I’m so fucking stupid. Why did I even—why now? Why to you? You used to make my life hell! Why did I think you’d care?”

Max moved. Fast.

He was next to Richie in a blink, face somber and his eyes glassy.

“Richie. Stop.”

Richie turned away. “Don’t. Just—don’t.”

“Richie, look at me.”

He didn’t.

Max reached out, gently turning Richie’s face toward him, fingers warm and weirdly solid for a ghost.

Richie flinched, but didn’t pull away.

“I didn’t know,” Max repeated, softer this time.

Richie stared at him, tears threatening to spill again.

“I don’t think any less of you,”

Max said, slow and deliberate, like he was making sure every word stuck. “Not even a little. You’re still you. Actually, no—you’re more you than anyone I know.”

Richie let out a sound halfway between a sob and a laugh.

Max gave him a lopsided grin. “Honestly? Kinda explains why you’ve always had more guts than me.”

Richie shoved his shoulder lightly. “Shut up.”

“Make me.”

There was a pause.

So Richie leaned in and kissed him.

It wasn’t graceful.

It wasn’t some polished movie kiss with fireworks and slow music playing in the background—it was messy and uncertain, and Richie’s lips trembled like he didn’t know if he was about to be kissed back or pushed away.

His fingers bunched in the fabric of Max’s letterman jacket like he was bracing for impact.

And then—

Max kissed him back.

Max kissed like someone who hadn’t been kissed in a long time. Clumsy in a way that was heartbreakingly honest, all instinct and no plan. And Richie kissed like someone who didn’t think he’d ever be allowed to do this—like it was borrowed time, like it might be taken away.

He tasted like weed and salt and mint ChapStick. Max tasted like air after rain, like the way the gym smelled when no one was in it—faintly dusty, familiar. And he was warm. Too warm for a ghost. His fingers left heat where they touched Richie’s skin, and Richie suddenly wasn’t sure if he was crying or just overwhelmed.

Richie let out a sound he didn’t mean to make—part relief, part disbelief—and Max shifted closer, tilting his head a little, one hand coming up to cradle Richie’s jaw like he was afraid he’d vanish if he didn’t hold him just right.

Their teeth bumped once. Richie let out a startled laugh against Max’s lips, and Max pulled back half an inch, grinning.

“You good?” Max asked, voice low and weirdly tender.

Richie nodded, eyes shining. “Yeah. I’m good. Are you good?”

“I’m making out with the coolest guy at hatchetfeild High. I’m fantastic.”

Richie flushed, heart hammering in his chest, unsure if he wanted to punch Max or kiss him again.

So he kissed him again.

This time slower, deeper. Their noses brushed. Max’s hand slid into Richie’s hair, fingers sifting through hair, thumb brushing the edge of his ear in a way that made Richie shiver. It was clumsy and sweet and totally overwhelming.

And when they finally pulled apart—breathless and red-faced and leaning into each other like two kids hiding from the world—Richie felt like he was standing on the edge of something huge. Not a cliff. Not a fall. Something better. Something terrifying, but safe.

Max was staring at him like he couldn’t believe what had just happened.

Richie’s voice came out shaky. “You’re not freaked out?”

“Are you kidding?” Max said, and laughed. “I just got kissed by the boy I used to doodle hearts around in the margins of my math about homework in 4th grade”

Richie laughed—really laughed, for the first time in days. His nose was running, his face was blotchy, and Max still looked at him like he was the coolest person in the room.

“I was subtle,” Max said, clearly lying. “Maybe too subtle.”

“You were the opposite of subtle. You called me ‘shitlips’ for two years straight.”

Max smirked. “Yeah, well. Repressed feelings make people stupid.”

Richie let out a breathy laugh and wiped his eyes again. “God. I was so scared to tell you.”
Max’s expression sobered. “I get it.”

“No, I mean—I really thought you’d hate me. Or laugh. Or disappear.”

Max’s fingers tightened where they still rested on Richie’s shoulder.

“I’ve done a lot of shitty things in my life,”

He started.

“But not loving you for you because my dad said so? Was the worst one”

Richie nodded slowly, like the words had to physically settle into his chest before he could believe them.

Max pulled him in again—not for a kiss this time, but a hug. Arms wrapping tight around him, grounding him. Richie buried his face in Max’s jacket and let himself be held.

No one said anything for a while.

Outside, the wind picked up a little, rustling the tree branches near the window. The clock ticked faintly. Somewhere in the distance, a car horn blared.

Inside, everything was still.

Richie stayed pressed against Max, cheek resting against his collarbone.

He could feel Max breathing. That was still the weirdest part—not that Max was a ghost, but that Max was here. Tangible. Warm. Real.

He sniffed. “This is so weird.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m literally being cuddled by my dead ex-bully.”

“Former best friend,” Max corrected.

“Former best friend and dead ex-bully.”

“Former best friend, dead ex-bully, current emotionally stunted ghost boyfriend?”

“We’ll see lover boy”

Richie murmured, climbing into maxs lap like some cat and nestled into his chest, taking in his presence.

They stayed like that for a long time. Not talking. Not needing to. The TV hummed low in the background, and the lamp cast a golden pool of light across the carpet, soft and warm.
And somewhere between the weed haze and the ghost boy’s arms around him, Richie Lipschitz finally started to believe—maybe, just maybe—he was worthy of being loved exactly as he was.

Chapter Text

Richie woke to warmth.

Not metaphorical, poetic warmth—the sort the girls in old movies moaned about like it was a drug—but literal warmth. Human, breath-on-your-neck, someone's-arm-over-your-hips warmth.

For one brief, blessed moment, he forgot everything. The haunting. The kiss. The fact that he was a teenage trans guy with more emotional baggage than a Spirit Airlines flight.

Then Max shifted beside him, and Richie remembered everything.

His brain short-circuited.

“Oh my god,” Richie mumbled, sitting bolt upright.

Max groaned, one eye peeking open. “Jesus, give a guy a warning.”

“You’re in my bed,” Richie said, voice climbing.
Max blinked at him from the pillow. “I was tired.”

“You’re a ghost!”

Richie clutched his comforter like it was going to protect him from the conversation.

“You’re not supposed to sleep. You don’t need sleep!”

“Well, apparently I don’t need personal space either,” Max shot back, grinning. “You cuddled me first.”

ichie made a strangled sound and shoved his face into his pillow.

“Richie.”

“Nope.”

“Richie.”

“I’m dead. I’ve died. I’ve died and gone to gay hell.”

Max sat up slowly, hair sticking up in every direction. “Gay hell sounds kinda great, honestly”

Richie peeked out from under his pillow. “Stop trying to distract me from the elephant in the room.”

“I’m not. You’re just very distractible.”

Max’s voice dropped a little. “And cute when you panic.”

That shut Richie up real fast.

He stared at Max. At his annoyingly perfect smirk. At the way he was sitting there like the world hadn’t shifted sideways just last night when Richie had practically poured his soul into his mouth and Max had let him.

Richie swallowed. “So… about last night.”

Max’s smile faltered. “Yeah.”

“I was high.”

“You were honest.”

Richie exhaled slowly. “I didn’t mean to dump that on you. The trans thing. The kiss. All of it.”

“You think I’m mad?” Max asked gently.

“I don’t know,” Richie said. “I just— I didn’t think you’d still be here this morning. I thought you’d I don’t know..fuck off to the shadows and never return”

Max tilted his head. “Do you want me to be here?”

Richie paused.

And then, very quietly: “Yeah. I do.”

There was a long silence.

Max looked at him like he wanted to say something important. Then instead, he said, “I liked the kiss.”

Richie’s whole body buzzed with a feeling he could t describe properly.

“Even if it was weird and confusing and you’re definitely a virgin,” Max added, “I still liked it.”

Richie’s laugh was half-disbelief, half-nerves. “You really know how to romance a guy.”

“Virginity is romantic now?” Max teased, scooting a little closer.

“In our story? Probably.”

They looked at each other for a long beat. The room felt like it was holding its breath.

Then Richie whispered, “Can I kiss you again?”

Max didn’t answer.

He just leaned in.

Their lips met soft this time, careful. The kind of kiss that asked permission while already knowing the answer. Richie melted forward, hands grasping at the hem of Max’s jacket like an anchor, like if he let go Max might flicker away again. But Max was solid. Real.

Max deepened the kiss, fingers brushing Richie’s jaw, guiding him like muscle memory. Richie gasped against his mouth, felt Max smile into it, and everything cracked wide open.

It was clumsy and intense and perfect.

They broke apart for air, laughing a little, breathless.

Richie panted but the edges of his lips tugged with a shy excuse for a smirk.

“Your so fuckin pretty”

—and then Max kissed him again, and they tumbled backward onto the bed in a tangle of limbs and groans.

Somewhere between mouths and hands and muffled giggles, Richie grabbed Max’s collar and yanked him closer. “I swear, if you fade out now—”

“Not going anywhere,” Max whispered, pressing a trail of kisses along Richie’s jaw. “Tethered, remember?”

Richie was about to respond with something half-clever and half-flirtatious when—

Thud.

The bed frame jolted. They slid sideways—arms flailing, sheets twisted—and landed in a heap on the floor.

“Ow!” Richie yelped. “My hip.”

Max groaned. “My ghost dignity.”

Richie rolled off him and sat up, rubbing his elbow. “We’re so bad at this.”

“Speak for yourself. I was great until gravity betrayed me.”

Richie huffed a laugh, looked toward the mirror

—and froze.

Max was in the reflection.

Not faintly. Not like a shadow or a shimmer.
Solid. Real. Sitting beside Richie on the floor, mussed and grinning like a lovesick puppy.

“Max,” Richie said slowly, “look.”

Max turned.
And stared.

“…That’s new.”

“You’re not meant to have a reflection,” Richie said, matter-of-factly.

“I do now, apparently!”

They both stared at the mirror, then at each other, then back again, like in some skanky scooby doo episode.

“What does it mean?” Richie asked, voice rising.

“I don’t know!” Max snapped.

“I thought ghosts couldn’t—”

“Clearly I’m an overachiever!”

“Max, this is bad! This is, like, poltergeist-level stuff!”

“Relax!” Max said. “Maybe it just means… I’m getting stronger?”

“Oh, great! Love that for you! What if next week you’re possessing me?!”

Max smirked. “You’d like that.”

Before they could spiral further, Richie’s phone buzzed.

Incoming FaceTime: Pete

Richie panicked.

Max whispered, “Don’t answer.”

“I have to!” Richie hissed. “They’ll worry!”

“You’re literally shirtless!”

Richie scrambled for a hoodie and yanked it over his head. “Shut up shut up shut up—”
He answered.

Pete’s blurry face filled the screen. “Hey, Richie!”

“Hi,” Richie said, trying to keep his voice even. “What’s up?”

Pete squinted. “You okay? You look… flustered.”

“I tripped. On my floor. It’s dumb.”

“Classic Richie,” Ruth said, smiling as she aggressively made her bed just out of frame.

“You fall in your own bedroom more than
anyone I know! Not that I know ALOT of people”

Ruth paused.

“Thinking about it it’s not that much of a competition if I’m honest”

Behind them, Max was trying to army-crawl across the room and hide behind Richie’s dresser.

Richie glared at him. Max gave a thumbs-up.
Then Pete said, “Wait—what was that?”

Richie froze.

“What was what?” he asked too quickly, sweat bearing on his forehead before he could comprehend what this meant.

Pete leaned closer to his screen. “There was movement. Behind you.”

Ruth frowned. “I saw it too. Like, a person?”

Richie swallowed.

Max had stopped moving. He was sitting frozen halfway under the dresser like a kid playing hide and seek terribly.

“Dude is someone with you?”

Pete asked, his face full of concern.

“Okay..”

Richie began, taking a deep breath.

“This is gonna sound fucking insane”

Chapter Text

”This is gonna sound fucking insane,” Richie said.

His voice cracked in the middle of “fucking,” and he winced, running a hand through his bed-mussed hair. On the screen, Pete and Ruth stared at him, wide-eyed and expectant. Max was frozen in place behind the dresser like a cat caught halfway into a garbage can.

“Like,” Richie continued, already panicking, “certifiably insane. Like, get-the-guy-in-the-white-padded-room-insane. Like, I’d-do-a-psych-eval-on-myself-if-I-could-afford-it insane—”

“Richie,” Pete said slowly. “Breathe.”

Richie inhaled so sharply it almost whistled. “Okay. Okay. So. You guys remember Max Jagerman, right?”

“Obviously,” Ruth sighed. “We accidentally fucking murdered him, pretty hard to forget”

“Right,” Richie said. “Cool. Awesome. So. Uh. Hypothetically, what if I said… he’s not dead? Well..he is but not fully…I guess”

Ruth frowned. “What do you mean?”

Richie licked his lips. “I mean he’s still… around. Here. In my room. Right now.”

Pete raised an eyebrow. “Max Jagerman?”

“Yes.”

“In your room.”

“Yup.”

“The same max who we had to cut up after he got impaled on stray wood?”

“That’s the one!”

A silence hung in the air so thick Richie could taste it.

“Richie,” Ruth said gently, “are you—are you okay?”

“Emotionally? Never. But also yes. I’m telling the truth.”

Pete leaned closer to the screen. “Richie. That’s not funny.”

“I’m not joking!” Richie snapped. “He’s been here for days. At first, I thought I was losing it—like, full-on haunted doll territory—but he’s real. He’s solid. And also we kind of maybe kissed but that’s not the point!”

Ruth made a choked sound. “He what?!”

“Again, not the point. Look, he’s not evil.”

Richie contemplated his words and looked back at max, who was trying hard to look innocent.

“Or, like, he’s less evil than before”

Pete’s face was unreadable. Ruth looked torn between concerned and intrigued.

“I don’t expect you to believe me,” Richie said. “I wouldn’t either. But if you just—if you just look, I can prove it.”

He turned, heart in his throat. “Max?”

Max peeked out from behind the dresser. “You sure about this?”

“Nope. But it’s happening anyway.”

Max crawled out fully, stood up, and walked over beside Richie.

Then, he leaned down—smirking at the screen—and gave a little wave.

“Hey, nerds.”

Pete’s jaw dropped.

Ruth gasped, covering her mouth with both hands.

There was silence for a long, long beat.

Ruth whispered, “Oh my god. It’s actually him.”

“Told you!” Richie said, half-hysterical.

“Okay, okay, we’re coming over,” Pete said, already scrambling for his shoes offscreen.

“Don’t do anything until we get there. Don’t let him vanish or die again or whatever ghosts do. We’ll be there in fifteen.”

Ruth was already grabbing her jacket. “Don’t make out while we’re gone! I wanna see how it works!!”

Richie flushed crimson. “W-What?!”

“Bye!” Pete said, ending the call.

The silence that followed was deafening.

Max blinked at Richie. “So.”

Richie covered his face with both hands. “They saw you.”

“They did.”

“You waved.”

Richie let out a shaky breath. “This is getting real, Max. Like, too real. You’re not supposed to have a reflection, or show up on FaceTime. What if—what if this means something bad? What if you’re changing? Like..your reaching your final form and you ascend like in one of my anime’s?”

Max stepped closer. “What if it just means I’m getting closer to you?”

Richie’s breath caught.

Max smiled crookedly. “Come on…at least you won’t look insane when talking to me in public”

Richie lowered his hands. “That’s not— That’s not the point.”

Max closed the gap between them, just a few inches of oxygen between their chests. “You wanna talk about points? Because I think the point is—”

He leaned in.

“—we kissed,” Max murmured. “And you liked it.”

Richie’s stomach flipped.

“And then we kissed again,” Max continued, voice like warm honey, “and you really liked that.”

Richie swallowed. “I— I mean—maybe.”

Max’s smirk was predatory. “You’re very cute when you try to lie.”

“I’m not— I’m not lying.”

Max ghosted a hand along Richie’s hip, his thumb dipping just under the hem of Richie’s hoodie. “You’re definitely not hiding it well.”

Richie inhaled sharply.

“You make it really hard to be dead,” Max murmured, now nose-to-nose. “And harder to keep my hands to myself.”

Richie opened his mouth to say something clever—maybe “shut up” or “keep talking” or “do that again”—but Max kissed him first.
It was nothing like before.

This was heat. Teeth. Need.

Max kissed like he wanted to devour him—like this was all he had left and he was going to take it in gulps. Richie clung to him, legs nearly giving out, heart hammering so hard he was half-sure it echoed in the room.

Hands moved.

Shirts shifted.

Richie’s back hit the wall, and Max pressed in closer, body flush against his.

“Oh my god,” Richie gasped, when Max’s mouth found the soft skin below his ear. “Okay, okay, we’re doing this, we’re really doing this—”

Max grinned against his skin. “Only if you want to.”

“I definitely want to.”

Max leaned back just enough to look at him. “Say it again.”

“I want you,” Richie whispered, cheeks flushed and eyes bright. “Like, a lot. Like, inconveniently.”

Max looked at him like he was the sun rising in slow motion.

They kissed again, and this time Richie tugged Max down with him onto the bed, hips meeting in a desperate grind that made them both groan.

Then—

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.

They froze.

Richie blinked. “Was that—”

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.

Max flopped backward on the bed and screamed into a pillow.

“No,” he mumbled, muffled. “I refuse. Denied. I’m not here.”

Richie rolled off the bed, tugging his hoodie straight. “They’re early. They weren’t supposed to be early.”

“Then don’t answer.”

“I have to.”

“Don’t answer and fuck around with me instead.”

Richie paused.

Then smirked. “Tempting.”

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.

“RICHIE, WE KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE!” Pete’s voice shouted from behind the door.

“Goddammit,” Richie muttered.

Max sighed dramatically. “I’m gonna haunt your friends next.”

Richie grinned despite himself.

He headed toward the door, heart pounding, hair a mess, lips tingling—and knowing that the moment he opened that door, everything was about to change.

Chapter Text

Richie had no idea how the hell he was supposed to act normal with Max Jagerman sitting on his couch.

Let alone visible Max Jagerman. With his legs sprawled out like this was his house, not Richie’s. Like he wasn’t dead and shouldn’t technically be able to sit on couches in the first place.

“You sure this is a good idea?” Richie had asked Max twenty minutes ago, pacing in his bedroom like the floor might suddenly open up and swallow him whole.

Max had only smirked, standing shirtless at Richie’s door like a Greek statue who’d survived a car crash and somehow gotten hotter. “What, meeting your nerd friends? It’ll be fun.”

Fun.

Right.

Now Richie was curled up in one corner of the sofa next to said ghost menace, hoodie sleeves tugged over his hands, legs tucked beneath him as Pete and Ruth stared at Max like he was a very attractive and very haunted science project.

“Okay,” Pete said slowly, arms folded and gaze fixed on Max, “so… you’re a ghost.”

“Technically,” Max said with a shrug. “Also technically not. It’s like, ghost-plus.”

“Ghost-plus?” Ruth echoed, already half-laughing.

“Y’know,” Max continued, flashing a grin, “like Disney Plus. But with more blood and unresolved trauma.”

Ruth let out a snort and collapsed into the armchair beside Pete, laughing too loud and too long, because of course she would. “Okay, I hate how charming you are. I hate it. Richie, why does your dead jock boyfriend have more charisma than all of us combined?”

“He’s not my—” Richie tried, but the words tripped over his tongue.

Max looked over, brows raised. “You were saying?”

Richie buried his face in his hoodie.
Ruth pointed dramatically at Richie like she’d solved a murder. “You guys fucked, didn’t you?!”

Pete looked like he’d just bit into a lemon. “Seriously?”

“No!” Richie blurted, face burning. “We’ve only kissed like…3 times!”

Max gave a long, slow blink. “Richie I’m hurt..last time I checked not 30 minutes ago you were grinding into me like some kind of dog in heat.”

Ruth let out another theatrical gasp. “Holy fuck!”

“Literally” max said, grinning at Richie mischievously

“I don’t—this is—can we just focus?” Richie stammered.

Pete, mercifully, stepped in. “Okay. Can we please get back to the terrifying supernatural implications of our dead high school bully now being a solid, visible, fully sentient… guy? Who has abs even after death?”

Max flexed slightly. “Thanks for noticing.”

“I didn’t—”

“Pete,” Ruth said, grinning, “he’s not wrong.”

Pete let out a suffering noise.

Max, meanwhile, sprawled further across the couch, managing to take up more space than should’ve been physically possible. “Look, I don’t know how I’m here. All I know is, I died, and then boom—I wake up, I see Richie, and I’m… tethered.”

There was a beat.

“Not complaining,” Max added with a wink. “Nice view.”

Richie tugged his knees tighter to his chest, as if that would hide the blush crawling up his ears.

“We were friends as kids,” he said quickly, to change the subject. “Third to seventh grade. Then he…” Richie hesitated. “Stopped talking to me.”

“Because my dad found out I had a crush on you and beat the shit outta me,” Max said casually.

Ruth’s smile dropped.

Pete blinked.

Richie looked at Max, throat tight.

It still hurt to hear it aloud. Even after everything.

“Yeah,” Max added, stretching his arms. “He didn’t take the ‘I think I like boys’ thing well. Or the ‘I think I like Richie’ part. So, boom. Goodbye best friend, hello internalized homophobia.”

“Jesus,” Ruth whispered.

Okay,” Pete said slowly. “So you have unfinished business. Emotional stuff. Guilt. Repressed feelings. That’s ghost fuel if I’ve ever heard it.”

“Yeah,” Richie said softly. “But that doesn’t explain why he’s visible now. Why now.”
“Maybe the kiss?” Ruth offered with zero shame. “Like a ghosty True Love’s Kiss thing. I mean, do you see the way he’s looking at you?”

Richie stared at the floor like it had personally wronged him.

Pete sighed. “Okay, but let’s talk practicalities. Do you feel any different now that people can see you?”

Max shrugged. “Stronger, maybe. Or more grounded. Before, it was like I was half in a dream. Now I’m… here.”

Ruth leaned forward, eyes gleaming with curiosity. “Can you go through walls?”

“Nope.”

“Can you float?”

“Nope.”

“Do you sleep?”

“I can relax my mind in a state similar to sleep but I usually just watch Richie sleep.”

“Okay, that’s hot.”

Pete looked physically ill. “You what?”

Max just smiled, all teeth and danger. “Relax. It’s romantic.”

“It’s disturbing,” Pete muttered.

Richie was barely listening anymore. His brain was stuck on the word grounded. That’s what Max felt like now—less like a glitch in reality, more like a real thing. A person. Present. Tangible.

It was terrifying.

It was also…

Kinda nice.

Especially the way Max kept looking at him—like Richie was the most interesting person in the room. The only person in the room.

The conversation had drifted to ghost rules—whether Max had weird ghost business or whether there was some kind of cosmic ticking clock—but Richie couldn’t focus. Not when Max was this close, now pressed against him despite the mass amount of space on the sofa next to them.

Not when his knee brushed Richie’s every now and then.

And then—

Max’s hand slid under the oversized hem of his hoodie and rested, slowly, deliberately, on Richie’s thigh.

Richie froze.

The warmth of it burned through his jeans like a brand.

And then—his thumb. Moving.

A lazy, teasing circle. Just above the inside of the flesh. Just close enough to be maddening. Just far enough not to be obvious.

Richie made a small, involuntary sound in the back of his throat.

Pete glanced over. “You good?”

“Yep!” Richie said a little too quickly. “Totally fine. Love ghost talk. Keep going. Exorcisms, unfinished business, salt circles, whatever.”

Pete and Ruth went back to debating ghost psychology, not giving max and Richie a second glance as they argued.

Max leaned in close, lips brushing the shell of Richie’s ear. “You’re so easy to rile up.”

Richie squeezed his eyes shut. He wanted to melt into the couch. Or spontaneously combust. Either would do.

“Stop it,” he whispered.

Max’s hand inched higher.

“Max.”

“What?” he said innocently.

Richie bit the inside of his cheek and tried not to make another sound.

God, he was going to kill him.

Again.

He sat rigid on the couch, hoodie sleeves tugged down to his fingers, legs drawn up slightly as if that might make him a smaller, less-flustered target. Max, of course, looked smug as hell.

His fingers crawling higher up his jeans as Ruth and Pete argued about ghost ethics was just another Sunday.

He was too solid. Too warm. Too there.

And Richie was losing the ability to act like it wasn’t messing with his entire system.

“—so even if you’re, like, undead adjacent,” Ruth was saying, gesturing with a mostly-eaten pop tart she’d retrieved when she first got here, “you’re still occupying space, right? You cast a shadow. You touch things. Therefore, physics.”

Pete groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Ghosts don’t have shadows, Ruth. That’s, like, the one rule.”

“Yeah?” Ruth shot back. “Then explain why he tripped on the rug ten minutes ago.”

“That rug has it out for me,” Max muttered.

Richie nearly choked on his own spit when Max’s index fingers started tracing his own name into his thigh, dangerously close to Richie’s crotch.

He shifted his weight just enough to squirm, then immediately regretted it when Max leaned slightly closer and said, under his breath, “You’re so fucking hot when you’re trying to pretend nothing’s happening.”

“I will throw you through a wall,” Richie hissed.

“You won’t,” Max said, still smirking. “You like when I touch you.”

Richie’s face burned so hard he swore it must be visible from space.

Ruth, oblivious to the quiet chaos beside her, grinned. “Okay, but if Max can touch things—and be seen now—maybe this is some Poltergeist puberty type thing.”

Pete blinked. “I… hate how that kind of makes sense.”

“Right?” Ruth leaned forward eagerly. “Like he’s leveling up. You kissed, he gained XP. Boom—mirror reflection unlocked.”

Max wiggled his eyebrows. “So what happens if we go all the way?”

Richie jabbed his elbow into Max’s ribs. Hard.

“Ow! That’s domestic violence.”

“I will kill you again.”

“You’d miss me.”

Pete cleared his throat, clearly trying to steer the conversation back to sanity. “Okay, so Max is more corporeal. He can be seen. He can touch. Theoretically… is there a limit? Could he disappear again?”

The humor fell from Max’s face like a mask slipping.

“I don’t know,” he said, and it was the first time he’d sounded unsure. “It’s not like there’s a manual. It just… happened. I don’t even remember dying. Not really. Just—pain, red, noise. Then I woke up, and Richie was the only thing I could see.”

Silence stretched between them.

Richie glanced down at Max’s hand—still on his thigh, though motionless now. Heavy in a comforting way. Familiar.

“I was scared at first,” Richie admitted quietly. “I thought I was going crazy. Like—really losing it. But now…”

Max looked over at him. “Now?”

“I don’t know.” Richie chewed his lip. “Now I kinda don’t want you to leave.”

Ruth let out the softest “Aww.”

Pete visibly softened too, though he rolled his eyes right after. “Still don’t know how we’re explaining this to literally anyone else.”

“We don’t,” Richie said. “Not yet.”

“Probably smart,” Pete agreed. “Let’s keep this in the ‘Circle of Nerds’ for now.”

You named us that?” Ruth said, laughing.

“I’ve always called us that. Behind your backs. Frequently.”

Max chuckled, and Richie watched him relax just slightly—still weirdly radiant in the late-morning sun, like something that shouldn’t be able to hold light was figuring out how.

Ruth leaned back into the armchair, draping her legs over the side dramatically. “Okay. So if we’re assuming Max is some kind of unfinished-business ghost—”

“I hate that term,” Max cut in. “Makes me sound like a failed high school essay.”

“—then maybe the kiss was a trigger,” Ruth continued. “Or the emotions. Or Richie’s raging teenage hormones. Something snapped the ghost barrier.”

Richie mumbled, “Please stop addressing us like your giving us some sort of messed up sex ed”

Pete laughed under his breath and started picking at a fraying bit of the couch seam. “Okay. Let’s just try not to accidentally exorcise him, then.”

“Yeah,” Ruth said, eyes sparkling. “Or worse—send him back mid-kiss.”

Max smirked and shifted just enough to let hid hand press firmly into Richie’s again.

Richie stiffened and tried to focus on the wall, the floor, anything that wasn’t Max Jagerman breathing softly next to him with his stupid, perfect jawline and his hand still very much still resting on—

“Welp,” Ruth said, standing suddenly. “I gotta pee. Back in a sec.”

She marched off down the hall with zero ceremony.

Pete stood too, stretching his arms. “Cool. I’ll check out whatever bizarre bathroom products Paul’s hiding in the sink cabinet.”

Once the two of them were gone, the room fell quiet.

Too quiet.

Max shifted so that their knees fully touched, and the space between them became a fuse waiting to be lit.

“Hey,” Max said, voice low, “you okay?”

I mean, aside from the whole ‘you’re dead and touching me’ thing?” Richie looked at him, trying to smile. “Totally.”

Max’s grin softened. “You know you can kick me off the couch any time.”

“Yeah,” Richie murmured. “But I don’t want to.”
Max tilted his head. “No?”

Richie shook his head slowly, eyes flickering from Max’s to his mouth.

And then Max leaned in.

Soft. Certain. Like they’d done this a thousand times.

And Richie let him.

The kiss was slower than the one last night, or the sexy make out this morning. Less frantic. More real. Like it had weight now—consequences and meaning and gravity. Like Max was staying.

Richie’s hand found Max’s shoulder, tugging him a little closer.

Max made a sound in the back of his throat, and that was all it took for things to start slipping.

The kiss deepened—hands curling into hoodies, mouths opening, breathing faster. Max’s hand slid from

Richie’s thigh to his waist, pulling him into his lap. Richie barely had time to process the movement before Max was pressing up against him and—

“Richie?!”

Pete’s voice rang out like a gunshot.
They flinched apart like guilty teenagers—because they were guilty teenagers—and Ruth came barreling back in, wide-eyed and winded.

“We just saw you two on the hallway mirror,” she blurted.

“God damn it,” Richie muttered, face already bright red.

Pete rubbed his temples. “We’re leaving before you start fucking or some shit.”

Ruth threw on her jacket, still looking between the two of them like she was watching a soap opera in real-time. “Call us if you start levitating or unlock ghost sex powers.”

“Not a thing!” Richie yelled.

“We don’t know that!” she called back.
The door shut behind them, leaving Richie and Max alone again.

Richie groaned and sank into Max’s shoulder, defeated. “They’re never letting me live this down.”

Max’s hand came back to his thigh, gentle this time. “Nope.”

“…You’re really not going anywhere, are you?”

Max leaned in, pressed a kiss behind Richie’s ear.

“Not unless you want me to.”

“I take that as a no then”

Chapter Text

Max hadn’t slept.

He couldn’t, of course—he was dead, for one—but he still lay there beside Richie all night, staring at the ceiling. The hum of the radiator, the soft whirr of the fan, the quiet sighs Richie made in his sleep—all of it passed around him like wind through an open grave.

But Max stayed still. Not touching. Not breathing.

Just… watching him.

Richie, curled toward him, a hand tucked beneath his jaw, was the softest Max had ever seen him. No furrowed brows. No biting sarcasm. No practiced tension. Just Richie, asleep. Skin warm, lips parted, chest rising slow and steady. Peaceful. Max hadn’t known he could look peaceful

He almost reached out, once, to brush the hair from Richie’s forehead. But he didn’t. He didn’t dare wake him. Not after last night. Not after that kiss that had left Max’s hands shaking and his soul—whatever was left of it—buzzing like a goddamn tuning fork.

He’d never been kissed like that. Not even close. Not with tongue, sure, but also not with feeling. With honesty. Like Richie knew him and wanted him anyway.

As dawn crept in, gray and shy through the curtains, Richie stirred.

Max sat up on instinct, stretching out the stiff ache that somehow still settled in his ghost body like muscle memory. Richie rubbed his eyes with the back of his knuckles, hair a disaster, cheeks still creased from sleep.

“Morning,” Max said, trying to sound casual.

Richie groaned. “Ugh. No. Cancel it. Cancel morning.”

Max grinned. “Sorry. It’s already live.”

Richie rolled out of bed and immediately padded to his desk, where his little red sharps container sat beside his testosterone supplies. He pulled his shirt over his head and Max—despite knowing he should look away—couldn’t.

He wasn’t ogling. Not like that. But something about Richie’s bare back always made him pause. Maybe it was the newness of it. The solid curve of muscle in his shoulders.

Or maybe it was his front? The clean, healed lines of top surgery scars running beneath his pecs—white and neat and unapologetically there.

But it was also the other scars—the fine, thin ones on Richie’s thighs and hips, that Max hadn’t noticed before. That Richie never talked about. That Max now, painfully, understood.

Richie didn’t flinch as he cleaned the injection site, loaded the syringe with practiced ease, and plunged the needle into his thigh. It was clinical, efficient.

Max felt something tight twist in his chest.

Richie didn’t look up.

“You’re staring.”

Max blinked. “What? No.”

“Yeah-huh.”

Max crossed his arms and leaned against the wall, grinning. “Fine. I’m admiring. You’re cute. Deal with it.”

Richie gave him a look, but his ears turned red. “You’re such an asshole.”

Max shrugged. “You’re the one with a very stabby morning routine. It’s hot. Sue me.”

Richie snorted. He pulled a T-shirt over his head—tight, black, and soft—and then turned to grab a hoodie from the back of the door.

He brushed his hair quickly with a comb that has seen better days before quickly spraying any open area with antiperspirant. Not that there was many.

After a few more stupidly adorable parts of Richie’s morning routine, it was 8, and Richie had to go or risk being late for school.

“You coming?” he asked, well, shouted from the stairs, key jingling in his hand.

Max hesitated. “I… can’t.”

Richie stilled, hand on the banister.

“I’m visible now,” Max said. “To everyone. Not just you. You know that, right?”

Richie nodded slowly. “Right.”

“If I follow you to school, someone’s gonna see me. And, like—really see me.”

Richie stared at the stairs beneath him for a second, then nodded again. “Yeah. Okay. Just—don’t do anything stupid, okay?”

Max gave him a mock salute. “No promises.”

Richie smiled—small, tired, but real—and left, the door clicking quiet behind him.

Max stood alone in the silence.

For a long moment, he just looked around the room. Richie’s scent still lingered in the air—clean laundry, old paperbacks, something like pine shampoo. The windows creaked faintly in their frames. A breeze touched the curtains.

The quiet was heavier than it should’ve been.

He wandered.

First the desk. Max poked at the little trays of binder clips and post-its. A wrinkled Polaroid of Ruth, Pete, and Richie—probably from freshman year—was stuck to the mirror with a sparkly frog sticker. Richie’s handwriting on a sticky note above it read:

Don’t listen to the mean voice today.

Max stared at it for a long time.

Then he moved to the bookshelf.

It was cluttered and chaotic. Textbooks and manga, stacked together. A copy of Frankenstein next to a volume of Chainsaw Man. But tucked behind the rows, almost hidden, was something familiar.

Max slid it out.

A small, faded friendship bracelet.

The thread was dulled, knotted in uneven colors. Red, blue, and green—sloppy, with Max’s own handwriting still faintly visible on one bead: M + R

His breath caught.

He remembered this.

Fourth grade.

Recess.

Max had learned how to make friendship bracelets from a girl he’d charmed into teaching him.

He’d made one for Richie.

Called it “insurance” so no one else could “steal” him. Richie had laughed so hard, Max remembered wanting to kiss him even back then and not knowing what it was or why that felt like swallowing fire.

He never thought Richie kept it.

He turned it over in his hand. The cheap elastic was fraying, and it had clearly been worn, or at least handled a lot. Like Richie held it, when no one was looking.

Max sat down on the edge of the bed.

He didn’t cry.
(He couldn’t, technically. Ghosts didn’t do tears. Just the feeling of them.)

But he held that dumb little bracelet for a long, long time.

And for the first time since he’d died, Max didn’t feel like he was stuck in some punishment loop from hell.

He felt… free.

A feeling he only remembered feeling when his mom with still around.

————————————————————————

By the time Richie walked up the front steps, his feet felt like bricks in his sneakers. The school day had been long in that surreal, post-trauma way—like everything had a weird underwater echo. His brain was still half-stuck in the morning, in Max’s smirk as he watched him get dressed, in the way his voice went all low and gravelly when he flirted. "You're cute. Deal with it."

Asshole.

Charming, infuriating, dead asshole.

Richie opened the front door quietly, slipping inside with the caution of someone expecting the weird to start up again. The house was still and warm, the hallway light glowing dimly from the kitchen.

“Max?” he called, shutting the door behind him.

A second passed. Then:

“In here,” came Max’s voice, distant but casual, from upstairs.

Richie exhaled a little.

He dropped his backpack beside the shoe rack and practically ran up the stairs, two at a time. He pushed open the door to his room and found Max sitting cross-legged on his bed, flipping through one of Richie’s old sketchbooks with way too much interest.

“You’re nosy,” Richie said, raising an eyebrow.

“You’re sentimental,” Max shot back, holding up the friendship bracelet between two fingers. “This still smells like 5th-grade glue sticks and your pocket lint.”

Richie flushed. “Put that down.”

Max did—carefully, like it was fragile. His expression wasn’t mocking, though. If anything, it was… thoughtful. Maybe even soft.

“I didn’t think you remembered,” Richie muttered, toeing off his shoes.

Max shrugged. “I didn’t think you kept it.”

Silence fell between them, thick and pulsing with things unsaid.

Richie sat on the edge of the bed beside him, close enough that their knees touched. “Today sucked.”

“School stuff?”

“People stuff.”

Max nodded like he understood. And maybe he did. Maybe he always had.

“I had a weird dream in chem,” Richie added.

“You were in it.”

“Oh yeah?” Max grinned, smug. “Was I shirtless?”

Richie kicked him lightly in the shin. “No. You were... bleeding out on the Waylon house floor.”

The grin vanished.

Richie stared at the wall, jaw tight. “And then you sat up and asked me if I still liked you. And I couldn’t answer. I just—froze.”

Max was quiet. He reached out after a moment and touched Richie’s wrist. Just a brush. Bare skin on skin.

“I know I said it was stupid to fall in love with someone who’s dead,” Richie murmured, “but... I think I already did.”

Max inhaled sharply through his nose.

Richie didn’t look at him.

He didn’t need to.

He already felt Max’s hand sliding up his arm, warm and slow. Felt the shift of weight as Max leaned in.

When their lips met, it wasn’t cautious or lustful this time. It was hungry.

Max kissed like he was starving for Richie. Like he'd waited a decade. Like the kiss they’d been sharing before had been the match and this was the flame.

Richie tilted his head, opened his mouth, let Max taste him. Their hands roamed, Max’s fingers curling into Richie’s hips, Richie’s arms winding around Max’s neck.

They fell back onto the bed with a thump, tangled together.

It was stupid.

It was electric.

Max’s thigh pressed between Richie’s legs and Richie moaned—quiet, surprised, aroused, betrayed by his own body.

“I missed you,” Max whispered against his lips, breath hot. “Even when I thought I hated you. I missed you every goddamn day.”

Richie pulled back just far enough to look at him. “You’re such a loser.”

“Yeah,” Max grinned. “But I’m your loser.”
Then: knock knock knock.

Richie froze. Max went stiff like a dog caught stealing.

The knock came again, more insistent.

“Richie?” Ruth’s voice called through the door.

“You home?”

“Shit,” Richie hissed. He scrambled upright, hair wild, shirt twisted at the hem.

Max stared at him, dazed. “Are you kidding me—again?!”

“Get off the bed!” Richie whisper-yelled,
slapping at Max’s chest. “Fix your face!”

“Fix your face!” Max whispered back, but he was already getting up, cheeks flushed.

Pete’s voice floated in now. “We brought snacks!”

“Be right down!” Richie yelled, before turning to Max. “Just—sit down and look normal! No more thigh groping!”

“Can’t promise that,” Max said, winking.
Richie shoved him.

The doorbell rang again and Richie adjusted his shirt so it looked less like he’d just been sucked into a vortex of horny ghost makeouts, then all but leapt down the stairs, skipping the bottom step with a practiced hop. He paused at the front door, took a breath, and opened it.

Pete stood on the porch with a plastic tub of homemade brownies in his hands, Ruth next to him with a canvas tote bag stuffed with snacks, and—Richie blinked—Steph.

Richie’s stomach dropped.

“Surprise,” Pete said, cheerful but a little guilty. “Steph was hanging out with me when Ruth texted, so I figured, y’know…”

“Hey, Richie,” Steph said casually, like this was normal.

Ruth, eyes wide, mouthed a sincere "Sorry."

Richie gave her a sharp look, then stepped aside to let them in. “Come on.”

They tromped up the stairs, Pete in the lead and Ruth trailing behind. Steph stepped in last with a nod of thanks and a mischievous twinkle in her eyes that Richie did not like.

They reached his room and—of course—Max was there, perched on the edge of the bed, trying and failing to look casual. His hair was tousled. His shirt was inside out.

Pete noticed immediately. “...You look like you lost a fight with a leaf blower.”

Max blinked. “Shut up micropeter.”

“That pantsing was so long ago!” Pete said defensively. “And it wasn’t even that small back then!”

“Okay, okay,” Richie snapped. “We’re not doing this.”

Ruth beelined for Richie’s desk chair and plopped down. Pete made himself at home on the bed beside Max, still balancing the brownie container like it was holy sacrament. Steph leaned against the wall with her arms folded, looking smug.

Richie crossed his arms. “Wait—how do you know about Max?”

Steph raised a brow. “Pete told me.”

Richie’s mouth dropped open. “Pete?!”

Pete flinched. “You kissed a ghost! I needed backup!”

“It wasn’t backup, it was gossip!” Richie hissed.

Ruth held up both hands. “I didn’t tell anyone. I just brought Doritos.”

“Wait,” Max said, pointing to the tote bag. “You brought Doritos? What flavour?”

“You’re dead you can’t eat,” Ruth said, matter-of-factly.

“I can eat,” Max countered. “I kissed Richie with a mouth, didn’t I?”

“OH MY GOD,” Richie groaned, face flaming.

“Can we not bring that up every five minutes?!”

Pete started to argue something about boundaries when they all froze at the sound of the front door opening downstairs.

“Richie?” Paul’s voice echoed up from the hallway. “You home?”

Richie cursed under his breath. “Max, hide!”

Max looked wildly around, then dove behind Richie’s closet door like a sitcom character. Steph threw Richie’s laundry basket in front of it.

Huh. Richie could have sworn that was full this morning.

Pete called down, “Hi, Paul! We’re just hanging out!”

“Are you guys staying for dinner?” Paul called back.

“Sure!” Ruth replied brightly.

Richie shot them all a look of pure betrayal.

————————————————————————

The smell of curry filled the house about thirty minutes later. Paul had apparently decided “tea” meant ordering from that Thai-Indian fusion place down the block. They ate in the kitchen—Steph, Pete, and Ruth sitting at the table with Paul while Richie picked at his food, distracted.

Max was upstairs. Alone. Bored. Potentially snooping again.

“You’re quiet,” Paul said, nudging Richie’s shoulder. “Everything okay?”

Richie gave a weak smile. “Just tired.”

Paul raised an eyebrow. “You sure?”

Richie opened his mouth—then closed it. The words sat on the tip of his tongue like they might just leap out if he wasn’t careful. There’s a ghost in my bedroom. I kissed him. I might love him. He’s the kid you used to love but now hate after I’d come home with black eyes. Also, how would you feel about me losing my virginity to a dead max jagerman?

He swallowed hard. “Yeah. Just a lot on my mind.”

Paul nodded slowly. “Well, you know you can talk to me.”

“I know,” Richie said, softer now.
But he couldn’t.

Not yet.

————————————————————————

The house quieted around eight.

Richie waited until the front door clicked shut behind Pete, Ruth, and Steph before practically sprinting up the stairs. His feet barely touched the floor. His heart beat like a war drum—not just from anticipation but from that gnawing, electric thrill Max always seemed to inject into him lately.

He pushed open the door to his room.
Max was sprawled across Richie’s bed like it belonged to him. Like he belonged there. Arms tucked behind his head, ankles crossed, shirt (finally) right-side out, but riding up just enough to reveal a sliver of toned, ghostly abs that made Richie forget his own name.

Max tilted his head lazily and smirked. “Hey, handsome.”

Richie’s mouth went dry. “You’re gonna be the death of me.”

There was a long, drawn out beat of silence before Richie grinned.

“Come here.”

Richie barely got the door shut before Max had crossed the room and backed him up against it. The air between them went hot and tense in an instant. Max’s hand cupped Richie’s cheek, rough thumb stroking over soft skin, and Richie leaned into it like it was instinct.

Then Max kissed him.

Not the teasing kind of kiss they’d been sharing over the past few days—not a testing-the-waters kind of kiss. No. This was hungry. This was messy, open-mouthed, tongue and teeth and breath stolen straight from Richie’s lungs.

Richie whimpered into it, hands scrabbling at Max’s shirt, dragging him closer. He could feel the way Max’s body pinned his to the door, firm and solid and dangerous in all the ways Richie liked.

Their hips brushed.

Then pressed.

Then ground.

Richie gasped, his head falling back against the wood as Max rolled their bodies together. His thighs instinctively parted just enough to let Max fit perfectly between them, his jeans catching against Richie’s sweats in a maddening friction that sent heat spiking down Richie’s spine.

Max groaned against his mouth, low and breathy. “Fuck. You’re... god, Richie—”

Richie surged forward, kissing him hard, his own hips rocking up to meet Max’s with a desperation he hadn’t known he’d been sitting on. The pressure against his front—against the sensitive ache of his cunt and t-dick—was unbearable in the best possible way.

Max grabbed under Richie’s thighs and hoisted him, forcing Richie to wrap his legs around Max’s waist. The door gave a protesting creak as Max ground him into it, one hand bracing the back of Richie’s head so it wouldn’t knock painfully. The other slid beneath his hoodie, splayed wide across the smooth skin of Richie’s lower back.

Their mouths never parted.

Richie was panting, hips moving on instinct now, chasing the friction like he needed it to breathe. “Max—shit—”

“Yeah, baby,” Max whispered, lips brushing Richie’s ear, breath warm. “You want it?”
Richie nodded, head lolling against the door.

Max kissed the corner of his mouth, then along his jaw, then sucked a hickey into the soft skin just below his ear. Richie gasped, body jerking. His hands fisted in Max’s hair, dragging him back up for another kiss—hot, wet, messy, tongue sliding deep, and Max groaned like he was being wrecked by it.

Max’s hand slipped between them, dragging down Richie’s front, over the curve of his stomach, down toward the waistband of his sweats—

“Richie?”

The voice was muffled but unmistakable.
They froze.

“FUCK,” Richie whispered in a strangled hiss.

Max let him down gently, almost apologetically, but didn’t quite manage to remove his hand before there was a second knock on the door.

“Richie, are you up?”

Paul.

Max dived for the bed, tugging the covers up over himself just as Richie yanked down his hoodie and tried to pretend his entire body wasn’t one giant, pulsing nerve ending.

He opened the door a crack. “Yeah?”

Paul raised an eyebrow. “Just making sure you’re good.”

“Yep! Totally good. So good. Normal level of good.”

Paul squinted at him. “You look flushed.”
“Too much curry.”

“You didn’t eat that much.”

“I did. Secretly. I went back for seconds.”

Paul gave him a long look. “Okay. Well... night.”
“Night!” Richie squeaked.

He shut the door.

Max was still under the blanket, barely stifling a laugh.

“You’re awful,” Richie whispered, climbing back onto the bed.

“I’m your problem,” Max said, poking his head out.

Richie let out a long breath and slumped down beside him, heart still hammering. Max immediately pulled him close, wrapping an arm over his chest and tugging him into a spooning position.

Richie went easily.

He nestled back into Max’s warmth, eyes heavy.

“You okay?” Max murmured into his hair.
“Yeah,” Richie whispered. “Just... you.”

“Just me?”

Richie smiled, half-asleep. “Just glad it’s you.”
There was a long silence. Richie felt Max kiss the back of his head—soft, reverent.

And then Richie was out, breaths going even, body warm and slack in Max’s arms.
Max lay still, holding him.

He stared at the ceiling for a long time, then down at his hands—solid. Warm. Pink.

Alive.

And he didn’t know what that meant yet.
But with Richie breathing against his chest, he felt something like peace.

Chapter Text

The quiet hum of Richie’s breathing nestled against Max’s chest should’ve been background noise. But to Max, it was the only thing anchoring him to reality

His arms were draped loosely around Richie’s waist, and every so often, Richie’s nose would nudge at Max’s neck with a content, sleepy sigh. Max stared at the ceiling in the soft pre-dawn haze, eyes half-lidded, and wondered if this was the kind of moment people were meant to hold onto forever. He didn’t need to breathe, not really, but he found himself mimicking it—slow, even breaths that matched Richie’s rhythm.

“I should’ve done this more when I was alive,” he thought, his hand brushing up over Richie’s shirt, fingertips ghosting (ha) over the warm curve of his lower back, dampened by the thin material of his sleep shirt, adorned with a stupidly adorable anime graphic.

He used to think closeness was just a different word for weakness or vulnerability but Now, with Richie in his arms, he was painfully aware of what it really was—softness, safety, surrender. And for the first time since dying, Max Jagerman felt... tired. Truly, wholly tired. Not the listless, unhinged energy of undeath. But something heavier, more human.

His eyes fluttered closed.

And he slipped into darkness.

*

He stood in an endless black void, the same one he was trapped in before becoming face to face with Richie. The same one he used to temporarily transport to when he got bored of watching the slow rise and fall of Richie’s chest.

There was no floor beneath him, yet he stood. No light, yet he saw. The void didn’t echo, but he felt the thrum of something ancient in the air. Then, like curtains pulling back on a stage, the Lords in Black emerged. All five.

The world twisted, warped, colors bleeding through shadows like oil on water. Wiggly appeared first—grinning, coiled, coalescing in a spiral of teeth and green glimmer.

“Well, well, well,” Wiggly purred, floating lazily toward Max. “You went and did the unthinkable, Maxie boy.”

“I’m dreaming,” Max said flatly, folding his arms, before stopping, a look of realisation flashing across his face. “But…ghosts don’t sleep.”

”Ah, but you’re not just a ghost anymore, are you?” Blinky’s voice slithered from the dark, her form a shifting silhouette of dripping purple and eyes.

Max’s stomach twisted. “What’s happening to me?”

“You’re being given a second chance,” pokey said, tapping his finger against the weird looking mask in his hands. “By us. Out of sheer, ridiculous curiosity.”

The Lords in Black loomed and surrounded.

“You see,” wiggly whispered, “we tethered you to the boy because we thought you’d stay dead. Because you should’ve stayed dead.”

“The damage you did,” Nibbly cackled, “should’ve buried any relationship you had with him. But instead…”

“Richie forgave you,” Wiggly finished, the word practically spat with disbelief.

Max’s jaw clenched. “He’s... kind.”

“He’s a fool,” pokey snapped.

“He’s human,” blinky murmured, eyes watching Max too closely. “He loves. Deeply. Too deeply, perhaps.”

Max felt cold despite being surrounded by eldritch beings. His hands curled into fists.

“You think he just feels sorry for me.”

“Don’t you?” Wiggly’s grin widened until it cut across his face like a crescent moon. “Maybe you think the only reason he kisses you is because he sees a sad, pathetic boy who died too young and can smooth talk his way into any of my fwendyweinds down on earth pants.”

“Love,” pokey sneered, “is a genre. And you’re lucky this one hasn’t turned into a tragedy yet.”

and before Max could respond, the void split like shattering glass, and the world twisted, his vision blurring at the edges as he fell back, hitting zip but endless nothingness for what felt like years until-

He woke with a gasp.

But he wasn’t Richie’s room.

He lay on old floorboards drenched in mud and he was cold, his back aching like he’d been hit with a truck.

The air around him was real—crisp, wet, and scented with pine and rot.

Wind whispered through the trees above.

He blinked rapidly, disoriented, then sat up sharply.

“What the—”

His clothes clung to him, crusted with dried blood and dirt. His hair was a matted mess. He looked down at his hands—trembling, bruised, filthy—and realized with a horrifying certainty that he was no longer translucent.

His heart was beating.

Slowly.

Steadily.

“I’m back,” Max whispered, voice raw. “Holy shit—I’m back.”

He stood, limbs shaking. His legs buckled for a moment under the unfamiliar weight of a body—of gravity—and he staggered forward.

“Richie.”

His voice broke.

Where was Richie?

The forest around him buzzed with quiet morning sounds, and though he was terrified and aching, he couldn’t stop the tearful grin pulling at his face.

“Richie, I need—fuck, I need to find him.”

Chapter Text

The first thing he noticed was the cold.
Not the kind that seeped in from cracked windows or drafty floors. No—this was a different kind of cold. The kind that spread slowly across his chest, hollow and wide, growing heavier the longer he stared at the empty space beside him.

Max was gone.

The blanket had slipped from Richie’s shoulder sometime in the night, and the air now pressed against his skin like a question he didn’t want to answer.

He blinked slowly, trying to remember what time it was, if Max had said anything about going anywhere, if ghosts could go anywhere without you.

The curtains still let in only the softest sliver of morning, casting the room in pale pinks and dusty golds. The sheets beside him were cold. Not just empty—cold.

He sat up abruptly, eyes scanning the room. “Max?” he called, voice cracking, still rough with sleep.

No response.

No quiet hum of Max’s voice filling the stillness, filling the emptiness with jokes and cheeky laughs.

Nothing.

Richie pushed the blanket off with shaky hands, swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood. The floor felt like ice against his bare feet. He checked the closet. The bathroom. Even under the bed, because he was that desperate.

Nothing.

He padded down the hallway, heart slamming a little harder with each quiet step. The house was unusually still. The air didn’t feel right—like the walls were holding their breath. He called Max’s name again, more softly this time, not wanting to wake Paul. But his voice still felt too loud.

Downstairs. Maybe Max had gone downstairs.
Richie stumbled into the living room, peeking behind the couch, checking the kitchen next, even opening the back door like Max might’ve slipped out into the morning dew. He wouldn’t have, Richie knew that, Max couldn’t be seen outside, couldn’t go far, couldn’t—

“Richie?”

He flinched hard, turning sharply toward the sound of Paul’s voice from the hallway. Paul stood by the stairs, in a crumpled dress shirt and trousers, his hair sticking up slightly at the back. Clearly not expecting him to be up so early.

“What’re you doing up?” Paul asked, frowning a little. “It’s barely seven.”

Richie opened his mouth. Then closed it. His throat clenched.

“I—I was just looking for… for the ibuprofen,” he said, too fast, too light. “My head’s killing me. I think I’m, uh… coming down with something.”

Paul’s eyes narrowed. He wasn’t stupid.

“Medicine cabinet’s in the bathroom. You passed it.”

“I didn’t—think of that.” Richie winced inwardly.
Paul didn’t say anything for a long moment. He just stared at Richie with a look halfway between suspicion and concern. Then, finally, he sighed.

“You don’t look well.”

Richie gave a weak frown.

“You’re not going to school like that,” Paul said.

“Go lie down. I’ll call them. Tell them you’re sick.”

Richie swallowed. His whole body was trembling now, too lightly to see, but enough to feel like he was shaking apart.

“I’m fine, forget it” he mumbled.

“You’re not. Go on.” Paul gave a gentler look this time. “We’ll talk later.”

That made Richie flinch again. “Okay,” he said, trying to keep his voice level. “Thanks.”

Paul grabbed his blazer and coat before hurriedly checking his watch as he shoved his arms into the sleeves. “I’ve got to open early—and Emma's got a morning shift, so…”

Richie nodded numbly.

Paul lingered for a second longer, looking like he wanted to say something, maybe ask a question, maybe press—but then he just gave Richie’s shoulder a soft pat and left without another word.

The door clicked shut. The lock turned. Silence again.

Richie stood frozen in the middle of the room.

The ache hit fast and hard, like someone had torn open a dam behind his ribs.

He barely made it to his room before his knees buckled.

His arms curled around himself like they could keep him from falling apart, but they couldn’t.

Not really.

He sobbed.

Ugly, heaving, snotty sobs. His forehead pressed against his tattered pillow.

He felt raw. Shredded. Pathetic.

Tears streamed down his cheeks and pooled into the fabric, and he didn’t care. He couldn’t breathe right. He couldn’t think right.

Because Max was gone.

And he didn’t know if he was ever coming back.

And worse—so much worse—was the thought that maybe it was Richie’s fault.

That maybe it was the way he looked at him.

The way he’d let Max kiss him. The way he’d kissed back.

Maybe ghosts weren’t meant for this. For touches and tangled legs and long looks across the room.

Maybe Richie had broken some invisible rule. Got too close.

Fell too hard.

Fell in love.

With a ghost.

“God,” he whispered, voice breaking. “What the fuck is wrong with me?”

He hated himself for it.

For being so stupid. For being so lonely. For letting himself believe—even for a second—that Max could be something more than just… a dead fucking bully.

He scrubbed his face with his sleeve, pulled out his phone with trembling fingers, and opened the group chat.

Richie: max is gone. idk where he went.

Richie: i think he left. or something.

Richie: i think he’s really gone.

The little message bubbles didn’t appear.

Of course.

Pete and Ruth were in school. Probably in math or some lecture on postmodernism or whatever.

He stared at the message. Read it. Reread it. He couldn’t stop the sting in his eyes, couldn’t stop the ache in his chest.

Although, after a few seconds, a message did come through.
Steph: oh shit. Do you want me to come round?

Richie hesitated. His thumbs hovered above the keyboard of his phone, vision still swimming. Part of him wanted to say no. To curl up and disappear and let the floor swallow him whole. But the other part — the one still flickering stubbornly like a pilot light — didn’t want to be alone.

Richie: Yeah. If that’s okay.

She read it. No typing bubbles. Just… silence. For a second, he thought maybe she changed her mind. Maybe she was ditching him too.
Then, finally:
Steph: Be there in twenty.

He didn’t reply. Just locked the screen and dropped the phone to the sheets beside him. The house creaked. Empty. Cold.

His gaze drifted toward his desk, quiet and cluttered as ever. Loose pens. Crumpled homework. A charger cord trailing to the floor. And — almost hidden beneath a notepad — a slim, stainless-steel razor, encrusted with something that made him feel disgusting.

His stomach turned. He didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Just stared.

Max was gone. And he was alone again.

Chapter Text

The knock came just as Richie was debating whether to curl up into a ball or try and throw up.

Three short raps on the door—soft, polite, and somehow out of place in the heavy stillness of the house.

Richie blinked up from his bed where he sat curled on top of a harshly checked bed, half-wrapped in a hoodie that smelled faintly of Max.

He didn’t expect her this fast.

He didn’t expect her at all, actually.

When he opened the door, Steph stood there in a hoodie of her own, hands shoved in the pockets, brows creased with quiet concern.
“Hey,” she said, like maybe she wasn’t sure if she was intruding.

Richie opened his mouth to say “hey” back, but what came out was a croak that could’ve been either that or “help.”

Steph stepped in and didn’t say anything at first. Her presence filled the house like soft static—familiar, not loud, but grounding. She kicked off her shoes at the door, as if she’d been here a thousand times. Maybe not this house, but in this moment, in Richie’s storm of a situation.

“Have you..eaten?” she asked, voice light, eyes careful.

Richie shook his head.

Steph gestured toward the kitchen. “Want to… sit or talk or—just stand awkwardly like Sims with low social bars?”

That startled a laugh out of Richie—a thin, brittle thing—but a laugh all the same.

“Come on I’ll make you something” Steph mutters, briefly grabbing his shoulder.

They drifted into the kitchen, Richie now clutching a glass of water like it might keep him anchored.

For a while, they just talked about nothing. Classes, Mr. Reyes’ tragic ponytail, How Ruth almost punched a vending machine after it ate her change again.

Richie mumbled responses, nodding too much, words catching in his throat like fishhooks.

Steph didn’t push.

She let him circle.

Then she said, quiet: “You miss him.”
Richie’s head snapped up. Her voice hadn’t been accusing—just gentle. An open hand, not a closed door.

His lips parted, then pressed shut.

Steph stepped closer and, without asking, pulled him into a hug.

And that was it.

Like something unzipped in his chest, Richie broke. No warning, no dramatics—just sudden, hiccupping sobs that wracked through him. He clung to her like a kid, face buried into her hoodie, and Steph held on tighter.

“It’s okay,” she whispered. “You’re okay.”

“I—I fucked up,” Richie choked out. “He was here, and I—I pushed and pulled and now he’s gone.”

“No,” Steph said, and there was weight behind it. “You didn’t fuck up. You loved someone.
That’s not wrong.”

Richie pulled back slightly, eyes wet, face red and blinked at her, letting out a shaky breath. “You’re a good one.”

“Better than Ruth?” she teased, nudging his shoulder.

“Don’t push your luck.”

A small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

“Wanna get out of the house?” she asked. “Drive, breathe? I’ll even let you DJ.”

“I get to play Mitski?”

Steph winced. “One track. And no Strawberry Blonde…it gives me 2020 TikTok flashbacks”

“Deal.”

————————————————————————

The car hummed along the winding backroads, cutting through small patches of woods and sun-dappled clearings. Richie’s forehead pressed to the cool glass of the passenger-side window, His eyes drifting across the blur of green and gray and gold.

Steph drove in silence, giving him space to let his mind wander.

“Do you ever…” he started, voice soft, “just feel like the moment you let yourself be happy, the universe snatches it away?”

Steph didn’t answer immediately. “Sometimes. But also… sometimes it lets you have it for a little while. And that has to be enough.”

They drove for a while longer.

It wasn’t until they turned near one of the gravely service roads near the hatchetfeild woods that Richie sat up suddenly, eyes narrowing.

“Stop the car.”

Steph’s foot hit the brake hard.

“What—?”

“There—!” Richie pointed.

In the slivered space between tree trunks, something moved.

Someone.

A figure at the edge of the woods, dark hair tousled, standing crookedly like they didn’t quite know how to hold their body upright.

They weren’t facing the road.

Steph squinted. “Is that—?”

Richie’s breath left him in a hiss. “That’s Max.”
He was already unbuckling, door swinging open with a slam.

Steph yelped. “Richie—!”

But he was already half-running toward the mountains of gravel and dust, the world closing in behind him like a net tightening around something precious.
Steph cursed and followed, gravel crunching under her boots.

Richie pushed past the tall weeds, eyes locked on the spot where Max had stood.

But—

Gone.

Only the wind moved.

Leaves whispered secrets above them, and the sky overhead darkened just slightly, a shadow passing through the sun.

Then—

A flicker.

Behind a lamp post, deep in the thicket.

“Wait,” Richie whispered.

Steph stood beside him now, panting. “You saw him too?”

He nodded.

They looked at each other.

and together they turned on their heels towards stephs beaten up sedan.

And something—just beyond sight—waited for them.

Chapter Text

The sky above was a shifting sheet of soft grey, streaked with white sunrays peeking through cloud breaks like hesitant fingers. It was the kind of weather Richie always found hard to name—too bright to be gloomy, too quiet to be cheerful. And yet, it set the perfect backdrop for the gnawing weight inside his chest.

He and Steph had barely spoken as they drove to the all-too-familiar woods, But, after catching a glimpse of Max—alive—something in Richie had turned electric.

Although, the looming, heavy dread hadn’t left his body since.

Every nerve braced.

Every breath shallow.

And the closer they got to the Waylon place? the louder the hum in his ears became.

After what felt like hours of quiet driving, they finally stopped at the edge of the woods, Richie hesitated.

“You sure about this?” Steph asked, hand on the keys, voice low. “We don’t have to go in if you—”

“No,” Richie said quickly. “I need to know if it was really him.”

Steph didn’t argue. She just reached into the backseat, grabbed a flashlight from under her seat—when had she gotten that?—and stepped out into the light-dappled morning.

They walked in awkward, agreed, quiet, trees closing around them like sentinels.

The forest was still, but not dead.

Leaves rustled overhead. A crow cried out far away. Richie’s boots sunk lightly into the soft earth, dew still clinging to grass and ferns.

Somewhere in the distance, a branch cracked—but neither of them turned, didn’t dare.

And soon enough, the disgustingly dilapidated Waylon house emerged through the trees like a fossil unearthed in a time-lapse.

Its roof sagged slightly, and the porch was choked with vines.

Half the windows were boarded up, and the ones that weren’t held glass thick with grime.

No signs of Max.

No signs of anyone.

Not since the accident anyway.

Richie stopped short of the porch steps.

“I don’t think we should go in,” he murmured. “I—Steph, I don’t know. Something feels wrong.”

“You think this whole thing’s ever felt right?” she asked, soft but serious.

“Come on. We’ve come this far.”

Richie hesitated. His heart pounded like it wanted to crawl up his throat and out of his mouth.

But he nodded.

Steph tried the door.

Locked.

They exchanged a look.

“I forgot we got in last time with Graces stupid key,” Richie mumbled.

“Then we improvise.”

There was a long, slow circle of the building. At the back, a shattered window gave them an invitation. Splinters glittered on the sill like jagged teeth. The glass was old, already cracked. But something about it looked too fresh—like someone had gone through recently.

Richie peered inside. His breath caught.

There, in the dust and rot of the Waylon living room, the once tarp covered hole where max once lay?

Gone.

“Holy shit,” Steph breathed. “He—Richie, he was really here.”

“I knew it,” Richie said, voice trembling. “I fucking knew it.”

They climbed in, carefully, brushing aside glass.

The air inside was stale and heavy with mildew. Floorboards moaned with every step.

Room by room, they searched. Nothing but shadows, cracked picture frames, and the sound of their footsteps echoing louder than they should.

Still, Richie felt it—that strange pull. Like something beneath the floorboards was tugging at his lungs. Urging him deeper.

“I don’t like this,” he said again, quieter this time.

But Steph was already moving toward the hall.

“We need to check the basement, it the only place we haven’t looked”

Richie swallowed and followed, remembering finding max down there after the fall.

Down the stairs. The air grew colder. The light thinned. The basement was more like a cellar, cramped and low-ceilinged, with boxes stacked and forgotten.

At the far end was the spot. The very corner Max had been found in, limp and bloodied.
It was clean now, the smell of bleach and guilt lingering like a loan shark. He could vividly remember max’s bitter yelling about “coming back and haunting some nerdy prudes” and looking into max’s powerful blue eyes as they dulled and greyed, the once dominant ice now a sad, blunt black that made his heart ache in a way he couldn’t describe back then.

After a few more minutes of drawn out looking, the weird weight of the basement churning Richie’s soul, they decided it was no use. It was getting dark and he knew Paul would be back soon and his phone was in stephs stupid car.

The stairs groaned loudly as they slowly ascended the stairs to the top of the house, deciding on one more clean sweep, something gnawing at Richie from the inside out, yelling at him to keep looking, no matter how useless it seemed.

The silence pressed too tightly against Richie’s ears as they looked down the hole max had created with his momentous fall.

He turned, about to say something to Steph—when the floor suddenly collapsed beneath his feet.

“Shit—”

He didn’t fall fast. It was more like the floor gave way in slow motion. One moment, he was upright. The next, the boards cracked and splintered and crumbled beneath him. He reached out for Steph—caught air—and then fell.

Just one story, luckily,

But he landed badly.

A sharp, sickening crack tore through his ankle and up his shin. The pain punched through him like lightning.

He screamed.

The basement ceiling spun above him. Dust billowed. The air was thick with the smell of rot and plaster.

“Richie!” Steph’s voice was a knife. “Richie, can you hear me?!”

“I—I think I broke my leg,” he managed through gritted teeth, his eyes blurring with tears.

She was above, dropping to her knees at the edge of the hole. “Okay. Okay, I’m calling for help, just—don’t move.”

He didn’t plan to.

The pain was crawling up his side now. A cold sweat broke across his forehead. His chest heaved.

No air.

He couldn’t breathe.

Not enough oxygen.

Not enough space.

Not enough anything.

His vision began to darken as the first panic wave surged over him.

“Steph,” he croaked. “Steph—I can’t—I can’t breathe—”

“I’m right here,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady.

“Hold on, Richie. Just hold on, they’re coming, okay?”

But Richie was barely listening.

Because just beyond her face, in the dimness of the ruined basement, a shape emerged.
Someone standing in the shadows. Watching.
Richie blinked through the tears and sweat. And he saw him.

Max.

Eyes wide. Lips trembling. Blood still clinging to the folds of his shirt. He was solid. Real. Alive

And crying.

He didn’t move toward Richie. He didn’t speak.
He just stared, fists clenched at his sides, body shaking.

“Max…” Richie whispered.

But Max took one step back, eyes full of something unreadable—regret, maybe, or fear—and vanished into the dark corner or the room.

And Richie, broken and breathless, reached for him.

But his hand caught only air.

————————————————————————

The antiseptic sting of the hospital room hit first—too bright, too clean, too still. Richie stirred under stiff sheets, blinking against the fluorescent lights overhead, his throat dry and his entire body aching. But his leg—God, his leg felt like it had been crushed under the weight of a fucking boulder.

A heavy splint encased it, white and clunky, the top corner already covered in a few messy signatures. One, he recognized immediately. Pete. Big looping letters with a little heart drawn next to it.

His chest tightened.

How long had he been out?

Before he could reach for a call button or twist around, a sudden weight crushed him—arms wrapped around his shoulders, pulling him into a hug that was too tight, too desperate.

“Jesus, Richie,” Paul breathed. “I thought—fuck, I thought I was gonna lose you.”

His voice cracked.

Richie froze for a beat, surprised by the sheer panic in it. He managed to lift his arm and wrap it weakly around his uncle’s side.

“I’m okay,” he rasped, his voice hoarse. “I think.”

Paul immediately eased up, still holding his shoulders, his face inches away now—eyes red, lips pressed thin like he was trying not to cry again. “You scared the hell out of me, kiddo. What were you doing out there? Why on earth were you and Steph investigating the most structurally unsound places in all of hatchetfield like some…low budget ghost hunters?”

Richie winced. “I didn’t mean for this to happen. I didn’t know it would go this far.”
Paul pulled back slightly, running a hand through his brown, gelled hair, his usual calm cracking into something more anxious, vulnerable.

“You broke your goddamn leg. You fell through a rotting floor, Richie. That’s not just some scrape. You could’ve died.” His voice shook. “You could’ve died and I wouldn’t have even known why.”

Guilt flooded Richie’s throat like acid. He looked down at the blanket. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

Paul sighed hard and reached out, gently squeezing Richie’s arm. “I’m not mad,” he said finally. “I’m just—scared. Still am. I’ll get out of your face although you know just aswell as I do that this conversation isn’t over. But You’ve got people waiting.”

With one last squeeze, he stepped aside.

And there they were—Ruth, Pete, and Steph. Standing quietly at the foot of the bed like a tableau. Ruth looked like she’d been crying. Steph hovered behind them, arms crossed, sorrow carved across her face. And Pete—Pete looked like he hadn’t slept in days, hair dishevelled and eyebags prominent.

They came in together, but Ruth was the first to approach. She leaned over and gently set a hand on Richie’s blanket-covered arm. “You idiot,” she whispered, smiling despite the tears. “You absolute idiot.”

Richie gave a weak, sheepish grin. “Hi, Ruth.”
“I’m just glad you’re okay. We were so scared when Steph called us.”

“I didn’t mean to fall.”

“Yeah, well, you did.” She sniffed and stepped back to let Pete through.

Pete moved slowly, his gaze locked on Richie’s like he was still unsure he wasn’t dreaming. “Hey, Richie”

Richie laughed, but it came out a little choked. “Hey, Pete”

Pete took the chair beside him, but didn’t sit. Instead, he reached out and brushed a stray curl out of Richie’s eyes—fingers feather-light against his skin. Richie stilled.

“You scared the shit out of me,” Pete said, voice barely above a whisper. “I thought you were gone.”

There was something in his eyes that made Richie’s chest ache—something fierce, unspoken, raw.

“I’m still here,” Richie whispered.

Pete’s fingers lingered for just a second longer, then dropped to the edge of the bed. “Good,” he said. “Don’t scare me like that again.”

Stephanie still hadn’t moved.

Pete turned his head. “Steph?”

She stepped forward slowly, arms tight around herself, not quite meeting his gaze. “I should’ve—I... I knew it felt wrong. I—I pushed too hard.”

Richie shook his head. “No. You didn’t force me. I wanted to go. I needed to.”

Steph looked like she wanted to argue but swallowed it down. “I’m sorry anyway.”

The silence that followed felt heavy, but not unwelcome. Paul eventually slipped out to speak to a nurse, and Ruth and Pete wandered into the hallway to grab drinks. Richie was left alone for a moment, watching the clock on the wall tick past the early hours of the morning.

He’s been out for longer than he had expected.

The pain in his leg throbbed in dull, rhythmic pulses, but it wasn’t what kept his mind racing.
It was Max.

That glimpse—those fists clenched, those eyes glistening. He hadn’t imagined it. Max had been there. Watching. Wanting to help, maybe. But still running.

He drifted in and out of half-sleep as the evening bled into night. Eventually, his friends said goodbye. Steph gave his arm one last squeeze before disappearing through the door, shame still clouding her features. Ruth and Pete promised to come back after school tomorrow.

Paul stayed.

He pulled a blanket over himself and curled up on the visitor’s couch, snoring softly before the hour was out. Richie lay awake for a long while, the hospital room quiet aside from the occasional beep and shuffle of feet outside the door.

Then… a flicker.

The lights in the hallway dimmed for just a moment. The room chilled slightly, air growing still. Richie looked toward the window—and froze.

A silhouette.

Just beyond the pane, half-concealed in the shadow, stood Max.

But something was different.

His face was tight with emotion. His fists were bloodied. His eyes met Richie’s—and held.
And then, without a word, Max turned and disappeared into the dark, similar to just hours ago in the waylon place.

Richie’s heart pounded, breath caught in his throat.

He wasn’t just haunting anymore.

He was changing.

And Richie didn’t like it.

Chapter Text

Pain pulsed through Max’s body like a live wire. Each step forward was fracturing, each breath a struggle, but he kept moving. Through the woods. Out from shattered floorboards and broken hallways. Away from that house—the Waylon place—the scent of mildew fading behind him as twigs snapped underfoot.

It was early morning and the sky overhead was heavy with thick clouds, light filtering and subduing. The wind moaned through the pines, carrying echoes of fear and grief. Max leaned against a tree, gasping for air, sweat-soaked shirt tangled in branches. One moment he was cuddling with Richie, but the moment had shattered, and collapsed with the floor beneath them, plunging him into sorrow. Now, it was just him—bloodied, broken, and far from everything that mattered.

A voice crawled through the damp hush, a name: “Max?” A whisper. In the wind, or his memory?

He froze. Flashbacks jolted him—when his dad threw him to the trees after a soccer game loss, He had fled then. And still did now.

He pressed his hand to his chest. Blood didn’t matter. Panic did. His breathing came in rattled gasps. Memory surged the fire behind his eyes.

He could hear voices—human voices. Distorted and distant, like underwater echoes. Not-right echoes. Familiar.

He flinched, startled by pain as much as shock. He thought Richie—Richie wouldn’t be here.

Behind him a car engine roared to life and he felt sweat bead on his forehead, mixing with the crusty blood that coated his brow.

Desperate panic set in as his dad’s voice echoed in his head-

“Coward”

“Pussy”

“Fag”

His knees buckled again, and he pushed forward until he staggered into the clearing before the house, that stupid fucking house, bracken crunching under his dirt. The wind swirled around him, flinging leaves in circles.

Max looked up at the sagging porch.

Everything slid into place: the boarded windows to the black mould ridden hinges. the familiarity. And dread.

“I can’t, not again” he whispered. But he did.

He pulled himself forward, each step wet with dew, the spiral of grief tightening behind his ribs.

He reached the rotten boards leading to a weak looking window and shoved hard. Splinters bit into his palms. He hoisted himself inside, muscles screaming.

Inside, everything felt wrong: stagnant chill, the ghost stories left unsaid, the maggots of memory crawling just out of sight. His body had returned but not his courage.

But he couldn’t stop now. Not yet.

He crawled along the debris-strewn hallway, lunging silently toward the basement door. Every inch was agony. But his pain wasn’t as bad as the whisper that led him.

It wasn’t his dad anymore. It was Richie-

“I hate you.”

He reached the open basement door. He could feel the heat of richer surroundings—sweat, mud, fear.

He dropped inside. Darkness swallowed him whole. No lamp, no comfort. Just stale air and the thumping of his own pulse—taunting.

He was real.

He couldn’t disappear this time.

He slid to the corner, knees to his chest, curls fetal, breathing hard.

“Cuck,” he whispered.

He let the tears come in waves. Rain pattered somewhere above.

It must have been hours until he heard the unmistakable creak of the basement door. Then, Heavy footsteps. Light from the stairs strobed like a warning or a promise.

Max curled deeper. He could feel their eyes on him but dared not look up, the darkness sheik ding him from a confrontation with something bigger than himself.

Twenty seconds passed.

Then the beam from a flashlight. Cutting the darkness into brutal lines. His pulse froze.
They moved away, searching the lower floor.

Each echo was a nail in his heart.

When they retreated, he didn’t move. Ironic.

Maybe he’d let his eyes rest for just a second.

Sleep came unbidden. A fugue of adrenaline, fear, shame.

————————————————————————

Max woke to the sound of a snap. Wood splintered. A terrible thump. He tensed and lifted his cheek from the stone floor.

Then movement.

—Richie, half-shadowed, face pale, body broken. Max’s breath caught and then shattered.

“Richie!” He heard Steph call out from above.

It was all a blur, really.

The shapes moved—Paramedics, Steph’s frantic voice. Max tried to move, but pain shot through his body. He couldn’t go to him.

Shame backed him into a corner again.

He watched the stretcher lift Richie—a familiar body limp and hurt—and couldn’t help but feel responsible.

Then he saw it: a narrow door—he’d noticed it earlier. He clung to it like a lifeline. slipped through, thorns tore at his soaked jeans. Blood tracked over the fabric, mixed with mud. He stumbled.

He emerged onto a back service road, distant ambulance lights flashing through the woods sprayed in mossy black. Steph’s car followed behind them.

He needed to be invisible. Needed to hide. Needed to escape before Richie caught his breath again and saw him standing there.

Siren retreating. The road led him toward town—the diner’s neon promising coffee, anonymity, distance.

Miss retros.

He’s been here a few times, when his dad kicked him out.

The owner, miss Holloway, was nice enough.

He reached inside his shattered phone for emergency cash. Weathered bills crumpled between cracked plastic. Enough for coffee. Enough for a place to stay.

He walked toward a dim neon sign. The world turned domestic, bland, normal.

But he wasn't normal.

He was still Max.

Still running.

Max stumbled through the door of Miss Retro’s Diner before the evening had fully given way.

The neon sign still flickered, and inside it was oddly silent. No jukebox buzz or clatter of dishes. Just emptiness. He nearly collapsed into a vinyl booth, the sweet smell of syrup and fryer oil heavy in the air. He took stock of himself

Blood caked on his jeans and ankle—dark and dried, crusted into the cotton fibers. His shirt was mud-smeared and wet, smelling of damp earth. His face was streaked with tears and sweat. He hadn’t showered since god knows how long ago, and his skin felt stiff and coarse.

He looked up and realized he wasn’t alone. Two teenagers stood behind the counter in the dim glow of the “Open” sign, stiff posture, quiet hands. They’d caught glimpse of him in the mirror and were now staring down at their phones, thumbs twitching, ignoring him outright.

He didn’t completely blame them.

He swallowed.

“Um… coffee?” His voice cracked.

They barely blinked.

Now his throat worked harder. “Please?”

Still nothing.

He cleared his throat. “Excuse me?”

No response.

He realized he was very much Not One Of Them.

He slid out of the booth, stepped up behind the counter, and leaned in.

He had to admit, it was weird not being idolised or worshipped.

“Max.” Calm, measured. Familiar.

Miss Holloway sat down across from him, a stern, but comforting expression etched on her face.

Her voice was flat as paper. “You’re not meant to be here, are you?”

Max stared, stunned. “How—?”

“You’re… listed as missing. Declared presumed dead.” Monotone. “I picked up the report”

Max opened his mouth, then just shook his head. “I—I’m alive.”

She nodded. “Seems so.”

He closed his eyes.

A moment later, she spoke again. “You want coffee? Milk? Sugar?”

“I just want… you can see me?”

She leaned back. “Yes”

He sank back, letting his blood-smeared back hit warm vinyl.

She flagged down the teen.

“Two coffees, black,” she said.

The teen froze, then started the percolator.
Max clutched his phone. “They think I’m dead,”

he whispered.

She exhaled loudly. “I know.”

He felt dizzy. “I messed up,”

“Maybe you did” She murmured. “But maybe tomorrow, you’ll be brave enough to make it right. Hm?”

He blinked.

Part of him whispered he should run. But part felt safe for the first time in hours.

She slouched forward. “Want the truth?”

He nodded.

“I don’t know what the fuck you did,” she started, softly. “But if it has anything to do with the ambulance that passed by an hour ago, you need to go right your wrong”

Max swallowed, twisting his shirt.

She continued. “I can drive you. I suspect you don’t know where your truck is?”

“No ma’am”

She sighed.

The coffee arrived, steaming.

He stared at his reflection in the dark surface—blood, belligerence, agony. He drank it anyway. Slows thoughts, calms the body.

“Yeah..i would like that”

Chapter Text

The drive back from the hospital had been one long silence.

Miss Holloway didn’t press. Not even when Max’s chest trembled as they turned off the main road. Not when he hunched forward in the passenger seat and covered his face with his hands like he might physically claw the guilt out of his own skin.

She only drove with one hand on the wheel, the other resting near a travel mug of black coffee. The radio was off. The heater hummed low, keeping the windshield from fogging over.

Max watched rain smear across the glass. His reflection blurred in the window—softer, less dead, but still distinctly not him. Not alive not haunted, Just adrift.

“I shouldn’t have come,” he whispered at one point.

Miss Holloway gave the barest nod, as if confirming a thought she’d already had.
Max felt his throat tighten. “I… I saw him. Richie. He looked at me like I was some sort of…fucking monster”

“You are, in a way,” she said.

They drove another mile before she added, almost gently, “That doesn’t mean you have to stay one.”

that led The ride back to be…disgustingly awkward, silence enveloping the car into agreed quiet, until they reached miss retros.

The diner lights were off by the time they returned, Miss Holloway deciding to close early that night to deal with max.

She ushered max inside as she opened a side door with a key that glinted brighter than the stars that adorned the sky.

“Get yourself cleaned up,” she said as she flicked on the back hall light. “Then get some sleep…sleep in a booth if you need to”

Max hesitated and took a deep puff of the air , which distinctly smelled like grease and cheap lemon cleaner.

“You’re really gonna let me stay here?”

“I already did.”

“…Why?”

She pulled a set of folded clothes from behind the staff closet door. “Because I know how it feels to think you have nothing.”

Max blinked. “That’s it?”

She offered him a tired smile. “That’s it.”

He took the clothes. They were a little too big, clearly meant for someone bulkier than him, but they were clean. Warm. Real.

“Got dishes in the morning,” she said. “Can you handle that?”

He nodded.

“And I’ll pay you under the table,” she added, voice brisk now. “But keep your head down. You're presumed dead. That means quiet.”

Max lowered his gaze.

“I’ll feed you. I’ll give you shifts. The back office has a small sofa for breaks—you can crash on a booth at night. But if you break my plates, or make a scene…”

“I won’t.”

“Good.” She studied him, then softened. “Sleep now. Talk less. Heal.”

He nodded and disappeared into the shadows of the diner, slithering down into the booth with the least amount of unexplainable stains.

————————————————————————

It had been 3 weeks since he started ‘working’ for Mrs Holloway and finally Max’s days settled into a rhythm.

He woke to the hum of the morning and loud cars, before he wiped down counters, and took orders when the diner was understaffed. He washed dishes until his fingers pruned and did odd jobs for spare change. Miss Holloway never pried, but she always noticed. She always kept the door unlocked after his night shifts, and she always left an extra plate of food, wrapped in foil, tucked behind the pastry case.

He began to look like a person again. He shaved. He cut his hair short. His nails grew back clean.

But inside? He was all rot.

He still woke at 3 a.m. with Richie’s name in his mouth.

Still flinched when headlights reminded him of the ambulance.

Still stared at his hands for hours, wondering how they’d become flesh again, and why the only warmth he’d known in weeks had slipped through them.

He missed Richie like a flower misses sunlight.

Every time the diner door jingled, he looked up—just in case.

But It was never him.

Its now Tuesday.

He thinks.

All he knows is it’s 12am, the sun has set into a twinkling array of stars and his shift is over.

Fucking Finally.

Max wiped his hands on a towel and clocked out.

the diner was empty.

The last customer—a trucker named Nolan—had tipped in crumpled ones and gone out whistling. The air was thick with fryer grease and antiseptic, the 16 year old chef getting into the 15th accident of the night.

he quietly trudged past Mrs Holloway, who was actively bandaging the pretty deep knife wound on the aforementioned chefs palm.

She glanced up as he passed.

“Long night?”

Max shrugged.

“Take a walk if you need it,” she said. “Clears the fog that is clearly swarming your brain right now as I fix this clumsy mare up”

He gave her a nod and slipped out the front door into the cold.

The streetlights hummed above him, casting long shadows over the sidewalk. Max shoved his hands into his jacket pockets. His body felt better now—real, functional—but the sense of hollowness hadn’t left. It rode in his chest like a second heartbeat

He passed closed shops, shuttered windows, glowing neon signs. Everything was quiet. Still. He didn’t know why his feet were taking him west.

Until they were on the bridge.

He’d been here before.

Sometimes to clear his head similar to now, others to consider something drastic.

Something he’s too much of a wimp to actually go through with.

Max didn’t even feel himself walking to the delapidated edge until He was stood there, arms on the railing, eyes scanning the water below.

Moonlight skimmed the surface in pale silver lines. It was so quiet he could hear his own pulse.

But he wasn’t alone.

Across the bridge, hunched against the opposite railing, was a figure.

A small one.

Still.

Max’s breath caught.

The hoodie.

The mop of dark hair with outgrown blue at the tips.

The way he shifted forward, resting on his forearms. Like the weight was pulling him.

Max took a step forward, barely daring to hope.

Then another.

Richie.

His name rose in Max’s throat and stayed there, stuck like glass.

Richie didn’t turn.

He looked down at the water with too much stillness in his body. That unmistakable stillness—the one that comes right before something irreversible. Something permanent.

Max’s heart thundered.

He took another step.

“Richie?”

No response.

Another step. Used Boots scuffed the concrete.

Then Richie’s head turned slightly, just enough that Max saw the profile of his face. His eyes were rimmed red. His mouth parted, like he’d just been crying or screaming or both.

Max stopped in the middle of the bridge.
“Richie,” he said again, quieter.

This time Richie looked at him. The kind of look that doesn’t hold anger or relief—just passing recognition.

Max’s stomach sank.

The wind picked up, sending Richie’s curls over his eyes. The water below roared in silence.
Neither of them moved.

Max’s next breath was a tremble.

“Please,”

Richie blinked.

And for a moment, Max couldn’t tell whether he was about to step back.

Or step forward.

Chapter Text

Richie came home from the hospital in a wheelchair and silence.

Paul pushed the chair awkwardly up the ramp ted had put in earlier, his hands shaking, his voice soft but insistent. “You sure you’re okay? You haven’t said a word since we left.”

“I’m fine,” Richie mumbled.

He wasn’t. His leg was splinted and wrapped in layers of gauze and fibreglass, a pale reminder of everything he wanted to forget. A fall. A scream. Steph’s face. Max’s back disappearing into the dark. All of it blurred around the edges.

Paul unlocked the door and wheeled him inside.

The house smelled like cheap cleaner and microwaved curry. Normal. Too normal. Like the walls were pretending everything hadn’t shattered.

“Do you want—”

“I’m good.”

Paul hesitated. “I’ll call school, let them know you’re out for the week. Ruth and Pete are gonna check in later.”

Richie didn’t answer. He just grabbed his crutches and hobbled into his room, leaving his emergency only wheelchair in the front room for Paul, before shuttting the door, and laying down on the bed sideways—legs awkwardly slanted, pain humming through his calf. He stared at the ceiling until his eyes burned.

That night, he didn't sleep. He didn’t The next night, either.

And then… the days began to dissolve.

He stopped brushing his hair.

Stopped eating unless Paul forced him to.

The hoodie never came off. Neither did the sweatpants. Shorts were a distant memory now, folded and buried in the back of the drawer. His sleeves stretched over his hands, frayed from constant tugging. Everything he wore felt heavy, like armor.

When Paul asked how he was, Richie smiled. It wasn’t real, but it was enough to stop him from asking again.

The others didn’t press. Ruth texted twice. Pete sent a meme. Steph offered to drop off homework, but he ghosted the group chat. He couldn’t bring himself to face them. Not after everything.

His head felt like static. Blurred. Off-frequency. The kind of silence that wasn’t really silence—just pressure building behind his ears.

One afternoon, while Paul was out, Richie stood in the bathroom staring at the razor under the sink.

He picked it up. Sat on the closed toilet. Rolled his sleeve up slowly.

No music. No candles. Just cold tile and the thrum of his pulse.

He dragged the blade across already-scarred skin. Not deep. Not for attention. Just enough to release something trapped inside.

It helped.

Until it didn’t.

Eventually, he went back to school.

His limp was pronounced, cast replaced for a simple splint. They gave him crutches, but he barely used them. His arms ached. His back ached. His everything ached. But he kept going, because staying home felt worse.

The first morning he walked through the doors again, the hallway went quiet for a second.

Whispers floated behind him.

“Is that—?”

“He fell at that creepy house, right?”

“Fucking freak”

It left a pain in his chest that stung more than any bruise or bump.

But He kept walking.

Richie had stopped using his locker well before senior year due to the fear of being trapped in there until the janitor would let him out, opting to carry everything in a sagging backpack slung over one shoulder. What was different was that He stopped raising his hand in class. Barely looked at the board. Most days, he didn’t even take notes.

He sat alone in the cafeteria for the first two days back, avoiding questions he couldn’t answer, and truths he couldn’t face. Then Pete and Ruth returned, flanking him like bodyguards, asking soft queries he barely heard.

“You okay, man?”

“Need help with Chem?”

“You wanna come over after school?”

He just shrugged.

And they let him.

His body was changing again, but not in the way he wanted.

The testosterone shots continued, sure. But the growth, the strength he’d once felt building up inside him, now felt distant. Like something had stalled. He looked in the mirror and saw someone tired. Hollow-eyed. Paler than usual. Like grief had sucked the color out of him.

His scars—both sets—felt more visible now, even hidden beneath layers.

Tuesday came.

A cloudy, sharp-edged day with too much wind and not enough warmth.

Richie sat at lunch with the others, nursing a warm soda and ignoring his mashed potatoes.
He reached for a napkin.

His sleeve tugged up.

Pete saw.

His brow furrowed.

“What’s that?”

Richie froze.

Pete’s voice was careful. “On your arm.”

Richie yanked the sleeve down fast. “Nothing.”

Pete set down his fork. “Richie…”

“It’s fine.”

“It didn’t look fine.”

“Just—drop it.”

Pete leaned closer. “Did you relapse?”

“No,” Richie said sharply.

Pete’s eyes were steady. “Richie-“

“I said no.” Richie stood.

People turned.

“Rich—”

“Stop acting like you know what I need!”

His voice cracked again. And the cafeteria silenced.

He grabbed his bag and limped away, tears burning hot behind his eyes.

He spent the rest of the day in the bathroom.
Same stall. Same lock. Same quiet sobs echoing against the walls.

He didn’t go to his last two periods. No one stopped him. He sat there until the school emptied out, staring at the floor, sleeve damp with tears.

He didn’t know who he hated more—Pete, for noticing?

Or himself, for letting it happen.

He didn’t talk on the walk home. Paul wasn’t there. The note was the same:
“Late at work. Call me if you need anything.”

He crumpled it again.

He didn’t eat.

He didn’t change.

He lay on his bed with his headphones in, nothing playing, just static against his eardrums.

and before he knew it, it was Midnight, his day wasted away doing nothing.

He stood.

His leg still ached. He barely noticed.
The house creaked. Quiet. Peaceful. Too peaceful.

He left through the back door. Hoodie up. Phone off.

He didn’t know where he was going.

Only that he had to go.

The night air was cold but not sharp. A soft, wet chill clung to the world like breath on glass. The pavement glistened faintly, reflecting streetlamps and the occasional passing car. Richie walked with his hood up, arms buried in the long sleeves of his hoodie, one hand absently gripping the fabric where his scars slept beneath.

He kept his head down. Just one foot in front of the other.

He wasn’t limping anymore. Or maybe he was and didn’t notice. The pain had faded into background noise. Or maybe it had just been replaced with something worse.

The world was quiet. Not peaceful—dead. Like it had folded in on itself and forgotten how to breathe.

The kind of quiet where you don’t feel small, you feel… unnoticed.

He passed shuttered shops, trash bins overflowing, a paper cup rolling in the gutter. His reflection in the glass windows was a smudge: too thin, too pale, too still.

He didn’t know where he was going, not until the bridge appeared through the dilapidated roads and lamp-posts.

The hatchetfeild bridge wasn't anything grand.

A simple stretch of aging concrete and iron spanning a slow, wide river. The kind of place that looked picturesque in autumn, haunting in the winter. There were older bridges in town—stronger ones. But this one had always unsettled Richie.

It was too quiet.

And the water…

The river below was a void. Smooth and black, like oil in a wineglass. On cloudless nights, the moon shimmered across it. Tonight, only thick cloud and the faintest reflection of the railings danced on the surface.

He stepped to the edge of the bridge and stopped.

Hands on the cold metal.

Eyes on the dark.

It wasn’t that he wanted to die. Not really.

He just didn’t know what else to do.

Everything felt stuck. Like he’d been wound into this weird loop of grief and guilt and not knowing where Max was or if he was okay. Or if he was even real. The memory of him was getting fainter. Even now, Richie couldn’t remember what his voice sounded like when he was calm. Only when he was teasing. Only when he was dying.

And that made him feel worse.

He didn’t want to forget him. He didn’t want to feel better if that meant moving on. He didn’t want to keep waking up if it meant walking through days like this.

Alone.

Fraying.

Hollow.

He leaned against the railing and looked down.
The water lapped gently against the rocks far below, but there was no sound. It was surreal—like the whole scene was on mute. The only thing he could hear was the faint rustling of leaves in the decrepit bushes behind him.

Everything was soft. Still.

The wind stirred his messy mop of hair beneath his hood.

The steel rail pressed cold into his wrists.

He gripped it harder.

His breath hitched.

Maybe he didn’t need to jump.

Maybe he just needed to stand there a while longer. Let the thought become heavier. Let it sit. See if it wanted to take shape.

The water didn’t look scary. It looked quiet.

Soft.

Almost welcoming.

He tried to imagine how it would feel.

Falling.

Silence.

The sudden shock of cold.

And then… maybe nothing.

Maybe peace.

His eyes were burning before he was even aware it was happening.

Tears slipping down his cheeks like raindrops on a car window.

He gritted his teeth and wiped them away with the back of his sleeve, but they kept coming.

His chest felt like it was caving in. Like something heavy had latched onto his ribs and was pulling inward.

He squeezed his eyes shut.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry I’m so fucking broken.”

He didn’t even know who he was apologising too.

Himself?

Max?

Paul?

All he knew was the fact his foot was shifting closer to the edge.

“Richie?”

He froze.

The voice wasn’t loud.

It was quiet. Frayed at the edges, like his beaten up hoodie.

But real.

His head snapped up.

He looked around.

Behind him—at the other end of the bridge—someone stood in the shadow of the trees.
Tall. Slouched. Hands in his pockets.

“Please”

His voice cracked.

The figure stepped into the moonlight.

It was him.

Hair shorter.

Clothes cleaner.

Eyes just as soft.

Max.

Alive.

Real.

Standing right there, like he hadn’t left Richie to the wolves and his own devices for the past month.

Richie’s knees buckled.

He let go of the railing and staggered back, gasping like he'd just surfaced from underwater.

His mouth moved but nothing came out. Every part of him screamed to run, to collapse, to ask questions, to sob, to punch him—

But he didn’t move.

Neither did Max.

They just stared.

Both trembling.

Finally, Max took a tentative step forward. “You’re shaking.”

“You’re alive,” Richie said. “You’re—alive.”

Max’s expression twisted into something pained and soft and desperate. “Yeah.”

The wind blew through the trees behind them. The river murmured in the dark.

Richie stumbled forward, a sob choking out of him. “You—why the fuck did you leave?! Why—why didn’t you say anything?!”

“I—I couldn’t—”

“I thought—” Richie’s voice broke, full sobs taking over. “I thought you were gone, Max! I thought I was losing my mind! I thought—”

And then Max was there.

Arms around him.

Pulling him in.

Breath warm against his hair.

Richie collapsed against his chest, shaking so hard he could barely stand. His tears soaked into Max’s hoodie. His fingers clutched at the fabric like it might vanish if he let go.

“I’m sorry,” Max whispered, over and over, into his hair. “I’m so sorry.”

They stood there like that for a long time.

Richie didn’t speak.

Max didn’t move.

The water kept flowing, and the clouds began to thin overhead, revealing faint stars.
Eventually, Richie pulled back, wiping at his face with the hem of his sleeve.

“I’m not okay.”

“I know,” Max said gently.

“I’m—fucking—not okay, Max.”

“I know.”